Endangered
Narrow-ridged finless porpoise
Neophocaena asiaeorientalis
Narrow-ridged finless porpoise is a mammal in the family Phocoenidae (order Cetacea) — Neophocaena asiaeorientalis, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
Body color and dorsal ridge sizes vary depending on the geographical location of the finless porpoise.
A finless porpoise can grow up to 2.27–2.29 m (7 ft 5+1⁄2 in – 7 ft 6 in) in length and weigh up to 71.8–123 kg (158+1⁄4–271+1⁄4 lb), even so, most are smaller than this.
Range and habitat
The Yangtze finless porpoise is found in the main body of the Yangtze River and in connecting lakes. Even so, distribution changes do occur seasonally. In the winter the highest distribution was found in the middle and lower regions of the Yangtze River.
The Tian-e-Zhou Oxbow Nature Reserve has worked for years to protect the porpoises. The reserve, that is sponsored by the Chinese government, World Wildlife Fund, the Coca-Cola Company, and others, increased its porpoise population from five to forty in twenty-five years.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
The diet of the Yangtze finless porpoise may vary according to the season and the dominant prey of the season. This variation in their diet suggest that the Yangtze finless porpoise may be opportunistic feeders.
Among the fishes in their diet, the most common are Coilia brachygnathus, Pseudobrama simoni, Pelteobagrus nitidus, and Hemiculter bleekeri.
In crisis
The Yangtze finless porpoise is considered critically endangered and it is estimated that only about 1,426 remain as of 2026. Due to the rapidly declining population of the species, the Chinese government and conservation charities are working to help save it from extinction. According to a 2026 report by China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the population of Yangtze finless porpoises has increased by 177 since 2022, thanks to a 10-year fishing ban for the Yangtze River implemented in 2021.
As of 2014, 505 porpoises remain in the main section of the Yangtze, with an alarming population density in Ezhou and Zhenjiang. While population decline tracked from 1994 to 2008 has been pegged at a rate of 6.06% annually, from 2006 to 2012, the porpoise population decreased by more than half.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Narrow-ridged finless porpoise is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Narrow-ridged finless porpoise, Wikidata item Q22286308. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
