baiji

plural baijis

1. A freshwater dolphin (†Lipotes vexillifer), only found in the Yangtze River, and declared functionally extinct in 2006.

   1 more example

   In 2006, he made a research trip to China to look for the baiji, also known as the Yangtze River dolphin. He and his colleagues searched the legendary river’s entire 1,700-kilometer main channel, twice. They counted nearly 20,000 large shipping vessels and more than a thousand fishing boats, but no river dolphins. At the end of their quest, they declared that the species was likely extinct, a conclusion now widely supported. For all the terrible harm that humans have done to cetaceans, drastically reducing their abundance and range, the baiji was the first of them that we ever completely extinguished. It happened in the 21st century.

   2021 March 30, J. B. MacKinnon, “An Entire Group of Whales Has Somehow Escaped Human Attention”, in The Atlantic

   Synonyms: Chinese river dolphin, Chinese white dolphin, whitefin dolphin, Yangtze dolphin, Yangtze River dolphin

1. alternativeuncountableAlternative form of bai ji.

1. A city and district in Saladin governorate, northern Iraq.