Latest Indian Issue -India - Philippines Joint issue

                                                                        The Ganges River Dolphin or Gangetic Dolphin is a freshwater dolphin that is found primarily in the River Ganges. Its zoological name is Platanista gangetica.The Ganges River Dolphin can be seen in several rivers of South Asia. There are two subspecies of the Ganges River Dolphin - one which is found in the Indus River and the other is found in river systems of North India, Nepal and Bangladesh. It can be seen in the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna in India, the Karnali River in Nepal and the Karnaphuli and Sangu Rivers in Bangladesh.

The Ganges River Dolphin is found in fresh water in rivers across the Indian subcontinent. It prefers to swim in deeper waters. During times of flood the Ganges River Dolphin is also seen in seasonal channels and flood plains. It prefers to stay in water with a temperature between 8 and 33 deg Celcius.The Ganges River Dolphin eats various species of fish, frogs, amphibians and other invertebrates and possibly turtles and young water birds. Fish is the main part of its diet and the Ganges River Dolphin spends much of its time feeding near the riverbed. It uses echolocation to find its prey and also uses its flippers and snout to locate something edible in the muddy riverbed.

Butanding (Rhincodon typus)is a whale shark with scientific name (Rhincodon typus). It is a slow moving and largest specie of fish in the world which is also a filter feeding shark. It can live for about 70 year and can grow up to 12.2 meters and weigh up to 13.6 tons. It is usually found in tropical and warm oceans as their habitat.

As a filter feeder, the whale shark’s foods are phytoplankton, macro-algae, plankton, krill and small nektonic like small squids, shrimps and prawns.

The whale sharks “Butanding” usually” visits the waters of the Philippines specifically in Donsol from the month of November to May. Butanding is migratory creature in nature which commonly travels across the oceans which close to the equator. Studies showed that nowhere else in the world they have seen a larger group of butanding than in the waters of Donsol, Sorsogon.

Date of Issue : 16-11-09

Thanks to Mr.Vinod for Images