Barbie fever seems to have reached the animal world. The neighbors of Louisiana have sighted this last week in its waters nothing less than a pink dolphin, a unique species that is in danger of extinction. In the post shared by Thurman Gustin, a Houston-based fisherman, you can see the presence of a pink dolphin in the Cameron parish, near the Gulf of Mexico.
Although the video briefly shows a dolphin before it submerges again, it is thought that more specimens exist in the area. At the moment, it is unknown which dolphin the neighbor sighted, but it is not the first time that albino bottlenose dolphins have been seen in the area. In fact, one of them has already been baptized with the nickname ‘Pinky’, (pink in English) by the inhabitants of the area after seeing it frequently.
Scientist Greg Barsh shed some light for National Geographic on the curious coloration of these dolphins, noting that they are albino and have a genetic mutation that makes their skin a pinker shade. It is not common to observe this genetic mutation, which is why only 20 sightings have been recorded since the mid-20th century, according to the Blue World Institute.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) points out that Amazon river dolphins can also have this color, being found exclusively in fresh water, specifically, in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador , Guyana, Peru and Venezuela.
In addition to being an endangered animal, the pink dolphin is the protagonist of a popular legend that tells that it was a young indigenous warrior. Apparently, one of the gods decided to transform him into a dolphin, condemning the warrior to live in the rivers of the Amazon. The attractive dolphin would have dedicated himself to conquering women in the area with the aim of getting them pregnant, which is why indigenous people in the region have tried to end this species.
