MOSCOW, January 30 (RIA Novosti) - A group of fishermen in southwest Bangladesh caught an extremely rare river dolphin and beat it to death as they had "never seen such a creature before," national media reported on Wednesday.
The fishermen caught the animal in the sea port of Mongla, where the Mongla river flows into the Bay of Bengal. The state-run BSS news agency said that after killing it, the fishermen tried to sell it as an exotic fish, but gave up and dumped the dolphin in front of a museum.
Unlike sea dolphins, Ganges river dolphins have up to 200 teeth in their long, beak-like mouths, and despite being almost blind, are successful predators.
Biologists believe that the mammal caught by the fishermen had been trapped in a channel at low tide.
River dolphins are found in the Amazon, Orinoco, Ganges and Yangtse rivers.
