| The earliest record of the finless porpoise in the Chinese classical literatures was in the book,《Shuo wen jie zi (To explain sentences and characters)》, by Xu Shen ( AD 58-148?). The finless porpoise was said to inhabit the middle reaches of Yangtze River and off the coast of Korea. About 13 names were given to the finless porpoise in Chinese classical works. "Jiangzhu (River pig)",the most popular name for finless porpoise in China, was listed for the first time in 《 Jiang fu (Articles on rivers) 》 published about 1700 years ago.The finless porpoise,Neophocaena phocaenoides,is distributed in the form of a narrow band along the coast line of tropical and temperate Asia including some rivers. It reaches the Penian Gulf in the west,the northern coast of Jawa in the south,the northern border of the Liaodong Gulf (41 °N latitude) in the north,and the Sendai Bay (38 °20' N latitude) in Japan in the east.The sexual dimorphism within each of the populations and the differences of external measurements and skeletal measurements between and among populations were studied using the covariance analysis and the discriminant analysis, based on 218 specimens (84 from Yangtze population,89 from Yellow Sea population and 45 from South China Sea population) collected by the Cetacean Research Laboratory .Nanjing Normal University between 1974 and 1991. The differences of external and skull measurements among Kyusyu,Toba (no skull measurements)South Asia populations and 3 populations from Chinese waters were studied using discriminant analysis based on data for Japanese and South Asia populations available in literatures. The result showed that 5-6 populations of the finless porpoise could be recognized. 1) South Asia population.inhabits the coastal waters of India and Pakistan; 2) South China Sea population,inhabits the coastal waters of South China Sea and northern part of East China Sea. The finless porpoise found off the coast of Vietnam,Malaysia, Philippines...
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