---
title: Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin (Sousa plumbea)
scientific_name: Sousa plumbea
common_name: Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin
taxon: Dolphins
conservation_status: EN - Endangered
published: 2024-11-02T09:25:01.359Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:57:50.912Z
tags: Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin, Sousa plumbea, Dolphins, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/dolphins/indian-ocean-humpback-dolphin
---

# Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin (*Sousa plumbea*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Dolphins (*Delphinidae*)
- **Size:** up to 2.8 m
- **Weight:** 150 - 200 Kg
- **Depth:** 0-30 m
- **Diet:** Piscivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Very shallow coastal water, bays and estuarine flats
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **CITES:** Appendix I
- **Conservation status:** EN - Endangered

## How to recognise it

- a long fatty hump along the back with a small triangular fin sitting on top
- heavy gray body, older animals pale and scarred
- surfaces beak-first at a shallow angle, rarely bow-rides
- length up to 2.8 m

Heavy, slow and unmistakable in profile: a long fatty ridge runs along the back with a small triangular fin perched on it, which no other dolphin here has. Up to 2.8 m (9 ft), gray, the oldest animals so pale and scarred they look bleached.

It does not come to boats. Where bottlenoses ride the bow, this species turns away, and a sighting is usually a distant back rolling over at the surface in water shallow enough to stand in. That shyness is why it is under-recorded and why an encounter is worth reporting.

It lives in the narrow band where the reef meets the shore - bays, flats, mangrove edges, the mouths of wadis - and hunts fish in water a few meters deep. The same band is where ports get built, nets get set and boats accelerate, and the species has declined across its range fast enough to be listed as Endangered.

Populations here are small, resident and effectively isolated: a group that disappears from a bay does not get replaced from elsewhere, because this animal does not cross deep water to recolonize.

**We do not support keeping dolphins in captivity.** These are animals that travel tens of kilometers a day, hunt in coordinated groups, hold societies with their own dialects, and stay with their families for life. A show pool reproduces none of it, and the noise, the chlorine and the boredom are not details - they are what kills them early. Many of the animals performing today were taken from the sea, and the drive hunts that supply them continue because the tickets sell. So do not buy one. No dolphinarium, swim-with-dolphins program or hotel show survives without paying visitors, and every one of them ends the day people stop coming.

## Also known as

- **English:** Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin, Indian humpback dolphin, Humpback Dolphin
- **Arabic:** دلفين المحيط الهندي الأحدب, Dukhs
- **Hebrew:** דולפין מגובנן של האוקיינוס ההודי, דולפין מגובנן
- **French:** Dauphin à bosse de l'océan Indien, Dauphin à bosse
- **Italian:** Susa indiana
- **German:** Bleifarbener Delfin
- **Spanish:** Delfín Giboso Índico
- **Greek:** Υβοδέλφινο του Ινδικού
- **Turkish:** Hint kambur yunusu
- **Portuguese:** Golfinho-corcunda-índico
- **Polish:** garbogrzbiet indyjski
- **Japanese:** ウスイロイルカ
- **Russian:** Свинцовый дельфин
- **AF:** Boggelrugdolfyn
- **DA:** Indisk pukkeldelfin
- **GUJ:** Fukariyo
- **HIN:** Paru vedan
- **HU:** Indiai púposdelfin
- **KAN:** Gad/Gaadha reda
- **MAL:** Kadal ongi, Kadal panni
- **MAR:** Gada reda
- **MLG:** Fesoke Manjavany, Fesobory, Fesodoby
- **NO:** Indiapukkeldelfin
- **SND:** Malhar
- **SW:** Pomboo mweupe, Pomboo nundu, Kushuku
- **TAM:** Sori vedan, Vella ongi
- **TEL:** Thella thoralu, Goonu

## Scientific synonyms

- *Delphinus (Steno) lentiginosus* Owen, 1866
- *Delphinus plumbeus* G. Cuvier, 1829
- *Sotalia fergusoni* Lydekker, 1903
- *Sotalia lentiginosa* (Gray, 1866)
- *Sotalia lentiginosus* Flower, 1884
- *Sotalia plumbea* (G. Cuvier, 1829)
- *Steno plumbeus* Blanford, 1891

## Range

Aegean Sea

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/dolphins/indian-ocean-humpback-dolphin)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*