In the warm seas of the fabulous Solomon Islands, in the middle of those lands which approach the constitution of the Moluccas, we were toured (August 2 and 10, 1825) by thousands of slender-beaked dolphins, whose size among the tallest, it did not exceed two feet. Their general color was brown, and we noticed a white spot only at the end of the muzzle. They jump out of the water like sombres, and follow a constant direction, all forming two lines arranged like a chessboard.
- Compliments de Buffon, 1838, page 616
I didn’t find a whole lot about this dolphin beyond the blurb I just copied above, originally in French. However, I believe it has the distinction of being the smallest dolphin species ever reported, dead or alive. Hershkovitz 1966 and Jefferson 2021 list the species in their catalogues, but do not offer any further speculation.
As can be seen above, Delphinus minimus is significantly smaller than the smallest confirmed cetacean species, the Vaquita porpoise. It's more comparable in size to a large fish, which, in my opinion, is probably the likely identity of the species. That said, I have no idea what fish species are native to the Solomon islands, are 2ft long, brownish and school in groups numbering thousands of individuals.
The description personally brings to mind cownose rays, which are indeed brown and create large schools, but again, I don't know how common schooling rays are in the Solomon Islands.
I'm totally open to outsider speculation and additions if you want to help beef up this article. Feel free to comment or hmu on Twitter (BrochJamm)
