Dolphins Morphology

Introduction
A vertebrate is characterized by the vertebral column as it is part of their axial skeleton. Its main function is to act as a communication pathway between the brain and the body of the vertebrate. Usually, vertebrates have a fixed number of vertebral column, but there are variations in the number of vertebral columns within the cetacean species. Dolphins are vertebrates and are one of the fastest swimming species due to their morphological stability. The morphology can determine the region of the species with greater or lesser flexibility. The form of the centrum, facial curvature, number of intervertebral joints, and structure and orientation of the processes are some of the ways to characterize and analyse morphology. Lagenorhynchus cruciger (L. cruciger), hourglass dolphin, is found in the oceanic cold waters such as the Antarctic and Subantarctic waters. Due to the fact that there are only a few of these species found as well as due to their oceanic habits, there are only a few biological and ecological data. …show more content…
The study shows how the structure of the vertebral column allows the species to swim faster due to flexibility, strength and stability obtained by the morphology of the vertebral column. Nine specimens were studied and proved that the specimens all had variation in their vertebral count, inclination angle of transverse processes, neural spine and neural arch in different regions in the same specimen, and the mean values of relative centrum length. They included quantitative data regarding the osteology and described the structure of the vertebral column of the specimens analyzed in