Click the speaker to hear the Dolphin!
Click the speaker
to hear the Dolphin!
WHAT DOES A DOLPHIN LOOK LIKE? The dolphin is a marine mammal. This means that it is warm-blooded, has
some fur (whiskers really), gives live birth, makes milk for its babies, breathes
air, and lives in salt water. (Some
other kinds of dolphins live in fresh water.)
A dolphin is definitely not a fish.
It is actually a small whale, and is in the same family as killer whales
and pilot whales. Bottlenose dolphins
are usually eight to nine feet long; (the males are bigger than the females). Their skin is a grayish color, with a lighter
belly. When the air and water are
very warm, their bellies may turn light pink.
A dolphin’s skin feels rubbery, and they have a thick layer of blubber
underneath to keep them warm. Blubber is heavy; dolphins weigh 400-500
pounds. Click
here to see a dolphin skeleton.
HOW IS A DOLPHIN BUILT FOR SWIMMING? Because dolphins breathe air, they must come up to
the surface of the water regularly. They only
have one nostril, located on the top of their head. This
is called a blowhole. (They use the blowhole
to breathe, but they have no sense of smell!) A
dolphin’s flippers actually have finger-like bones inside! Scientists believe that dolphins used to be land
animals. 50-60 million years ago, these land
animals started living in the water so they could catch fish easier. As they became better swimmers, they became more
like dolphins, and less like land animals. Today,
they still have finger bones because they used to have arms and legs on land! The dolphin’s tail fluke (fin) is not
perpendicular (up and down) like a fish or a shark. Instead,
the fluke spreads out side to side. When a
dolphin swims, he pushes his tail fluke up and down to help him dive or leap out of the
water. Dolphins may seem friendly, but they
are still wild animals. Never swim up to a
wild dolphin!
WHAT IS A DOLPHIN COMMUNITY? Dolphins like to live in warm, shallow waters along
the coast. Sometimes they come into large
rivers (like the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, FL), and sometimes they go further out
to sea. Dolphins live in family groups called
pods. There are often about twelve dolphins in
a pod, but sometimes several hundred dolphins get together.
They don’t usually migrate, but they may follow moving schools of fish.
HOW
DO THEY HUNT? Adult dolphins eat about 14 pounds of fish, shrimp,
and squid each day. (They have about 100
pointy cone-shaped teeth to help them catch and eat their food.) The dolphins’ powerful tail fluke also helps
them hunt. They can chase fish at 45 miles per
hour or use their tail fluke to slap the water (stunning fish) or herd them towards their
mouths. Dolphins can see, but their sense of
hearing is most important in the dark ocean. When
dolphins are hunting, they make squeaks and clicks. People
don’t notice many of these “ultrasounds” because human ears can’t hear
them. The ultrasounds travel through the water
and bounce off of fish that are swimming nearby. This
is called echolocation. The bounced-off
sounds, or echoes, come back to the dolphin. When
he hears them, he knows exactly where the food is and how to find dinner, even in the
dark!
DO
DOLPHINS TALK?
If they do, people haven’t figured out how to understand them yet. Right now, there is no evidence that dolphins have
a language like us, but they definitely communicate. They
tell each other about the location of food and dangerous animals, and they have a great
sense of humor. The dolphin’s echo-system
or SONAR, may be able to see inside other
animals. So, the dolphin could tell if a shark’s
stomach was empty and let the other dolphins know “hungry shark nearby - danger!” Or a Sea World dolphin could tell if his trainer
was upset if her heart was beating really fast. Dolphins
can perceive many things that people can’t. They
may not have a true language, but they definitely communicate.
WHAT ABOUT BABY DOLPHINS? Mother dolphins and their babies have a very strong
bond. (However, males and females do not stay
together after they mate.) Around Florida,
baby dolphins are usually born between February and May.
The mother feeds milk to her baby for up to 1 1/2 years, but the baby starts
to eat fish when he’s about six months old. The
mother won’t have another baby for 2-3 years. She
spends this time teaching the first baby to survive. Even
after she has a new baby, the older brother or sister will stay nearby until it is 4 or 5. Female dolphins are grown up at 5-12 years old,
males at 9-13 years old. Wild dolphins live to
be 25-years-old.
HOW ARE DOLPHINS PROTECTED? Bottlenose dolphins are protected by the Marine Mammal Act which says that you can’t kill, feed, or bother any marine mammal (seals, whales, otters, etc.) This law only protects dolphins near the United States. Many other countries still hunt dolphins and whales for food and for medicines made from their oil.
This Picture was taken on 1/29/01 at Pelotes Island Preserve near the Shrimper's Creek Bridge during a Field Trip by the Callahan Elementary School's 2nd Grade Class of Ms. Johnson.
Check out the dolphin coloring page by clicking on the Animal Pages Coloring box below!
RESOURCES:
Ballenger, Liz & Tracy Lindsley. "Tursiops truncatus." http://www.oit.itd.umi...Tursiops_truncatus.ftl. (27 Jan 1997).
Blackstock, Regina. "Dolphins and Man...Equals?" http://www.polaris.net/^rblacks/dolphins.html. (27 Jan 1997).
Compton’s News Media, Inc. "Dolphin." http:.//www.ucsc.edu/mb/creatures/dolphin-1.html. (27 Jan 1997).
Kkinowski, Margaret. "Brains, Behaviour, and Intelligence in Cetaceans," High North. "11 Essays on Whales and Man," 2nd ed. 26 Sept. 1994. http://www.highnorth.no/br-be-an.html. (27 Jan 1997).
LeBoeuf, Nicole. "The Bottlenose Dolphin." Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network. http: //www.rtis.com/na...sn/mmgulf/tursiops.html. (27 Jan 1997).
Reinartz, Ulrich. "Tursiops - Homepage." http://www.snafu.de/^ulisses/tursiops.html. (27 Jan 97).Provided by the Pelotes Island Nature Preserve
http://pelotes.jea.com