Stenella

Stenella 

a genus of mammals of the subfamily Delphininae of the suborder Odontoceti. The body reaches a length of 2.5 m. The palate is flat and lacks deep longitudinal grooves, and the snout is narrow and long. The teeth, which number between 140 and 208, are conical and measure about 3–3.5 mm in thickness. The back and fins are dark, the abdomen is white, and the sides are gray or white with one or two stripes. Sometimes the sides are spotted.

There are five species: the spotted dolphin (S. plagiodon), the Malay dolphin (S. dubia), the long-beaked dolphin (S. longirostris), the bridled dolphin (S. frontalis), and the blue-white dolphin (S. caeruloalbus). The dolphins, which feed on fishes and cephalopods, live in schools and swim rapidly. They are distributed in the warm and temperate waters of the Pacific Ocean. Only the blue-white dolphin is encountered in the USSR, in the seas of the Far East. The dolphins are hunted in Japan and on some oceanic islands (for example, the Solomon Islands). The flesh and fat are used as food.