Diversity of marine mammals in the Kingdom
Sixteen species of marine mammals have been recorded in the Saudi territorial waters in the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, where there is one species from the order of Sirenia (dugong), which are found in large numbers concentrated in some sites of the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea. They are marine mammals with smooth bodies and paddle-shaped front limbs, and their heads and mouths are distinctive in shape, which differ from other marine mammals, as the shapes of their mouths have adapted to the nature of their food represented in sea grass beds, where these animals live in shallow and warm waters to find food in them.
As for the order of Cetaceans, which includes whales (toothed and baleen whales), dolphins, and porpoises there are six species of whales, which are the Sperm whale, the Killer whale, the Mink whale, the Bryde's whale, the Fin whale and the Humpback whale, and there are also nine species of dolphins recorded in Saudi territorial waters which are the Bottle-nosed dolphin and the Rough-toothed dolphin, the Humpback dolphin, the Common dolphin, the Striped dolphin, the Spinner dolphin, the Pantropical spotted dolphin, the Risso's dolphin, and the Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin.
