[4][5] Early in the 19th century, a specimen was caught off the Cape of Good Hope and brought to the United Kingdom by a Captain Haviside of the British East India Company.

[8] Radiation around the southern hemisphere following the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (otherwise known as the West Wind Drift), first to New Zealand and then to South America, is thought to have led to the subsequent speciation within the genus.

[6] Typically occurs in small groups of 2–3, but numbers of 1–10 are frequent and large aggregations of ~100 individuals or more are known to form in high density areas.

[17] This pattern of fragmentation is a common feature amongst the other three species in the genus Cephalorhynchus and most prevalent in the Hector's dolphin, which displays genetic isolation over very short distances.

[20] Mating typically occurs in social groups of 3–7 individuals which remain in a small area exhibiting extensive rolling, touching and position changes with frequent leaps by one of pairs of animals which potentially serve a competitive function.

A diurnal movement pattern is present in South Africa, whereby the dolphins move offshore in the afternoon to feed on prey rising vertically to the surface at night.

[19] However, the pattern is different in Luderitz and Walvis Bay, Namibia where the movement is less pronounced and dolphins appear to stay inshore during the night, which is likely associated with foraging on different prey.

[23] Heaviside's have small home ranges of 50–80 km (31–50 mi) as measured using satellite telemetry over 2–3 months and photographic resightings over up to 3 years.

[24][25] There has been limited research into Heaviside's diving behaviour, however a study of two dolphins fitted with satellite tags was undertaken in South Africa in 1997.

As is the case with all species in the genus, Heaviside's dolphins produce narrow-band high-frequency (NBHF) echolocation clicks (centred around 125–130 kHz), and do not whistle.

[29] Although NBHF clicks are limited in acoustic range, they have a better resolution for small targets and are thought to provide a foraging advantage in the often cluttered, nearshore environment in which these species occur.

[30] Heaviside's also produce a second click type, of lower frequency and broader bandwidth, that is within the hearing range of killer whales.

[5] A visual and acoustic line-transect ship survey estimated an average of 1594 dolphins in the Namibian Islands' Marine Protected Area (NIMPA), which spans 400 km (250 mi) of coastline along southern Namibia (REF Martin et al. 2020).

[33] Heaviside's dolphins are exposed to several poorly quantified and rapidly changing human threats including fisheries bycatch related mortality and illegal directed catch (Elwen and Gopal, 2018; Alfaro-Shigueto et al., 2019).

Recently developed mid water trawls for horse mackerel (specifically Trachurus capensis) are considered an emerging threat.

[5] Heaviside's dolphins are listed amongst the cetacean species most vulnerable to climate change [34] as they are limited to a distribution range that includes both suitable shelf habitat and cool water temperatures (Best, 2007).

Heaviside's dolphins may be exposed to increase in the marine eco-tourism business in Namibia, which has grown without regulation in Walvis Bay (Leeney, 2014).

Prior to 2018, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the Heaviside's as 'Data Deficient' however, as of 2017 the status was changed to 'Near Threatened',[1] owing to improved knowledge on the species from multiple studies.