Headless Sea Animal Carcass Found on Guangdong Beach – Cause Confirmed

On February 12, some netizens discovered the carcass of an animal suspected to be a dugong on a beach in Wuchuan, Zhanjiang, Guangdong. #zanjiangasuspected dugong carcass found on a beach# became a hot search topic. Multiple insiders told a reporter from the Yangtze Evening News on the 13th that after on-site identification by experts, the possibility of a dugong has been ruled out, and the animal was basically confirmed to be a male Indo-Pacific finless porpoise.

The carcass of an animal suspected to be a dugong was discovered by some bird watching enthusiasts on the morning of February 12. At that time, they went to a beach in Zhanjiang to watch birds and found a headless body of a sea animal on the beach. They immediately took photos and contacted professionals to wait for species identification.

On the morning of the 13th, experts arrived at the scene to carry out identification work. Based on comprehensive judgments such as body length, skin color, reproductive organs, dorsal spine and pectoral fin structure, they ruled out the possibility of a dugong and basically confirmed that it was a dead male Indo-Pacific finless porpoise. Experts collected some samples for analysis and may release more authoritative results later.

Dugongs are large marine herbivorous mammals belonging to the order Manatee and family Dugongidae. They mainly inhabit tropical and subtropical shallow sea seagrass bed ecosystems and feed on seagrass. 2000 was the last verified year of live observation of dugongs in the field in mainland China; in 2008, a dead dugong was discovered in Dongfang City, Hainan Province, which was the last reliable record of dugongs in mainland China; on August 24, 2022, a study announced that dugongs were functionally extinct along the coast of mainland China.

The Indo-Pacific finless porpoise, also known as river pig and sea pig, belongs to the family Porpoiseidae of the order Artiodactyla, and is a national second-level protected wild animal. It has a blunt head, convex forehead, and no dorsal fin on its back. It lives in coastal waters, including shallow bays, mangroves, estuaries, and rivers. In my country, it is mainly distributed in the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and South China Sea.