Inia
Inia is a genus of river dolphins from South America, containing one to four species.

Dennis Otten · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- IniidaePBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB
Time the record covers
At least 5.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 0 Mya.
6 occurrences of Inia on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
6 occurrences- Miocene17%
- Pleistocene33%
- Holocene50%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Inia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
29 taxa- Podocnemis2 sites
- Ampullariidae1 site
- Brachygnatosuchus sp.1 site
- Castalia ambigua1 site
- Cingulata1 site
- Crocodylia indet.1 site
- Dasypodidae1 site
- Dinosuchus1 site
- Diplodon longulus1 site
- Eupera1 site
- Glyptodon1 site
- Glyptodontidae1 site
- Littoridina1 site
- Mammalia1 site
- Mammut1 site
- Notiomastodon platensis1 site
- Osteichthyes1 site
- Plantae1 site
- Pyrgophorus1 site
- Ragidae indet.1 site
- Rodentia1 site
- Sheppardiconcha septencincta1 site
- Tayassu pecari1 site
- Tellina1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Inia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
6 references- A New Species of River Dolphin from Brazil or: How Little Do We Know Our Biodiversity1
- Fossil record and the evolutionary history of Iniodea1
- Does radio tagging affect the survival of reproduction of small cetaceans?1
- Live-capture fisheries for small cetaceans in South American waters1
- Noroeste do Acre Reconhecimentos Geologicos para Petroleo1
- Fosseis Pliocenios do Rio Juruá, Estado de Amazonas1
Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Inia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dennis Otten
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- AMNH Mammal Collections
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Inia geoffrensis · AMNH:93415
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Inia”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itIniidae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. d'Orbigny 1834