The striped dolphins pictured here belong to a large social group consisting of more than 200 individuals.

This highly social species always hunts cooperatively, displaying remarkable coordination. They forage in offshore pelagic waters, far from the coast, generally avoiding fishing grounds and fishing gear, with which they rarely interact.

The marine area of the Ikaria Trench, extending from Ikaria to Chios and Samos, is one of the most important habitats for striped dolphins in the Aegean Sea. Here, the Archipelagos Institute has been monitoring their populations for more than two decades, along with a total of seven marine mammal species that inhabit this area of international importance for marine biodiversity.