Lagenorhynchus Gray, 1846

Jo, Yeong-Seok, Baccus, John T. & Koprowski, John L., 2018, Mammals of Korea: a review of their taxonomy, distribution and conservation status, Zootaxa 4522 (1), pp. 1-216 : 146

Genus Lagenorhynchus Gray, 1846

Of the six species recognized in the genus, only L. obliquidens inhabits the North Pacific Ocean. Based on cytochrome b gene analysis, LeDuc et al. (1999) regarded Lagenorhynchus as polyphyletic and suggested splitting the genus into three genera, Lagenorhynchus Gray, 1846 ; Leucoplearus Gray, 1866; and Sagmatias Cope, 1866 . LeDuc et al. (1999) recommended placing L. obscurus , L. obliquidens , L. cruciger , and L. australis in the Genus Sagmatias . However, Mead and Brownell (2005) proposed relegating two of the genera as a subgenera of Lagenorhynchus . However, Sagmatias appeared polyphyletic by analysis of nuclear genes ( McGowen et al. 2009). Lagenorhynchus obscurus and L. obliquidens were separated from the L. cruciger — L. australis group, which were more closely related to Cephalorhynchus . Although some taxonomists recognized Sagmatias as a distinct genus ( Murakami et al. 2014), the IUCN Red List still uses the Mead and Brownell (2005) taxonomy for Lagenorhynchus ( Hammond et al. 2012) . Since marine biologists have not reached an agreement on this genus, we have followed the taxonomy of Mead and Brownell (2005).