Dolphins are incredibly intelligent and friendly to humans, they have a cheerful disposition and are simply adorable animals. It is not for nothing that these aquatic mammals deserve such respectful treatment. Let's learn more about these amazing animals.
The word dolphin goes back to the Greek δελφίς (delphis), which in turn came from the Indo-European root *gʷelbh - “womb”, “womb”, “womb”. The animal's name can be interpreted as "newborn baby" (perhaps due to its resemblance to a baby or because the dolphin's cry is similar to that of a child).
The dolphin is the only mammal whose birth literally begins with the tail, and not with the head! Young dolphins stay with their mother for 2 or 3 years.
In nature, there are almost forty species of dolphins, their closest relatives are whales and sea cows. Dolphins evolved relatively recently - about ten million years ago, during the Miocene. Most dolphin species live in salt water, but there are also freshwater animals.
Adult dolphins reach sizes from 1.2 m in length and weight from 40 kg ( river dolphin), up to 9.5 m and 10 tons (orca). The brain is the largest organ in a dolphin's body. During sleep, part of the brain is awake, allowing the dolphin to breathe while sleeping so it doesn't drown! The life of a dolphin directly depends on access to oxygen.
Dolphins have a weak sense of smell, but excellent vision and absolutely unique hearing. Producing powerful sound impulses, they are capable of echolocation, which allows them to perfectly navigate in the water, find each other and food.
Dolphins are capable of making wide range sounds using the nasal air sac located under the blowhole. There are roughly three categories of sounds: frequency-modulated whistles, explosive pulse sounds, and clicks. Clicks are the loudest sounds made by marine life.
Dolphins can swim at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour for long periods of time. This is approximately 3 times faster than the fastest swimmers in the world.
Associated with dolphins is the so-called. "Gray's Paradox". In the 1930s Englishman James Gray was surprised by the unusually high swimming speed of dolphins (37 km/h according to his measurements). Having produced necessary calculations, Gray showed that according to the laws of hydrodynamics for bodies with constant surface properties, dolphins should have had several times greater muscle strength than was observed in them. Accordingly, he suggested that dolphins are able to control the streamlining of their bodies, maintaining a laminar flow around them at speeds for which it should already become turbulent. In the USA and Great Britain after World War II and 10 years later in the USSR, attempts began to prove or disprove this assumption. In the USA, they practically stopped in the period from 1965-1966 to 1983, since, based on incorrect estimates, erroneous conclusions were made that the “Gray's paradox” does not exist, and dolphins only need muscular energy to develop such speed. In the USSR, attempts continued in 1971-1973. The first experimental confirmation of Gray's guess appeared.
Dolphins have a system sound signals. Signals of two types: echolocation (sonar), which serve animals to explore the situation, detect obstacles, prey, and “chirps” or “whistles”, for communication with relatives, also expressing the emotional state of the dolphin.
The signals are emitted at very high, ultrasonic frequencies that are inaccessible to human hearing. The sound perception of people is in the frequency band up to 20 kHz, dolphins use a frequency of up to 200 kHz.
Scientists have already counted 186 different “whistles” in the “speech” of dolphins. They have approximately the same levels of organization of sounds as a person: six, that is, sound, syllable, word, phrase, paragraph, context, they have their own dialects.
In 2006, a team of British researchers from the University of St. Andrews conducted a series of experiments, the results of which suggest that dolphins are capable of assigning and recognizing names.
Communication with dolphins has a positive effect on the human body, especially on the child’s psyche. British experts came to this conclusion back in 1978. Since that time, the development of “dolphin therapy” began. It is now used to treat many physical and mental illness, including autism, and other ailments. Swimming with dolphins films chronic pain, improves immunity and even helps children develop speech.
Dolphins are also used in pet therapy to treat people using ultrasonic sonar.
A dolphin and a pregnant woman off the coast of Ixtapa, Mexico. Ixtapa, MexicoPicture: CATERS
Absolutely unique feature dolphins - they can “look inside” a person, like an ultrasound device - for example, they quickly determine a woman’s pregnancy. The feeling of “new life” often excites dolphins very emotionally; they react violently and joyfully to pregnant women, and, as a rule, pregnant women are not allowed to swim in the enclosures (although this may be true) best time for communication), so as not to take away the attention of animals from other visitors, and to avoid an involuntary “emotional attack” on the unborn baby.
An incredibly romantic fact from the “personal” life of dolphins - ethologists studying Amazon dolphins have discovered that males give gifts to potential partners. So, what gift is waiting for a female dolphin to consider as a candidate for procreation? Of course, a bouquet of river algae!
India has become the 4th country to ban the keeping of dolphins in captivity. Previously, similar measures were taken by Costa Rica, Hungary and Chile. Indians call dolphins “a person or person of other origin than “homo sapiens.” Accordingly, the “person” must have its own rights, and its exploitation for commercial purposes is legally unacceptable. Scientists who analyze animal behavior (ethologists) say that it is very difficult to determine the line separating human intelligence and emotions from the nature of dolphins.
United States and Russian security agencies have trained ocean dolphins for military purposes. Fighting dolphins were trained to detect underwater mines, rescue sailors after their ship was destroyed, and search and destroy submarines using kamikaze methods.
A dolphin has twice as many convolutions in the cerebral cortex as a human.
Dolphins not only have " lexicon"up to 14,000 sound signals, which allows them to communicate with each other, but also have self-awareness, "social consciousness" and emotional empathy - a willingness to help newborns and the sick, pushing them to the surface of the water.
Dolphins are voracious predators, feeding mainly on fish, mollusks, and crustaceans; sometimes they attack their relatives.
Dolphins generally live socially, are found in all seas and even rise into rivers.
Dolphins are famous for their playful behavior and the fact that, for fun, they can blow air bubbles underwater in the form of a ring using a blowhole. These may be large clouds of bubbles, streams of bubbles, or individual bubbles. Some of them act as a kind of communication signals.
Within a school, dolphins form very close bonds. Scientists have noticed that dolphins care for sick, wounded and elderly relatives, and a female dolphin can help another female during a difficult birth. At this time, the dolphins nearby, protecting the female in labor, swim around her for protection.
Along with humans and bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees), dolphins are the only kind animals that can mate for pleasure.
Another proof high intelligence Dolphins are protected by the fact that adults sometimes teach their young to use special tools for hunting. For example, they “dress” on their faces sea sponges in order to avoid injury when hunting fish that can hide in bottom sediments of sand and sharp pebbles.
Dolphin skin is very delicate and easily damaged when in contact with other surfaces. This is why before petting a dolphin, you must remove all sharp objects, such as rings.
Dolphins have up to 100 teeth in their mouths, but they do not chew food with them, but only capture it. Dolphins swallow all their prey whole.
Dolphins can dive to depths of up to 305 meters, but, as a rule, they only swim that deep when hunting. Many bottlenose dolphins live in almost shallow waters. In Sarasota Bay (Florida), dolphins spend significant time at a depth of only 2 meters.
The oldest dolphin in captivity was named Nellie. She lived at Marineland (Florida) and died when she was 61 years old.
When dolphins hunt, they use interesting tactics to drive fish into a trap. They begin to circle around the school of fish, closing the ring, forcing the fish to form a tight ball. Then, one by one, the dolphins snatch the fish from the center of the school, preventing it from leaving.
Dolphins can rise up to 6 meters above the water when they leap out of the water.
The dolphin is one of the most mysterious and interesting mammals living on our planet. It has been known since ancient times that these mammals can save drowning people and disperse oculi that gather near a person.
In particular, dolphins love children. The main advantages of this species of mammals are their friendliness, sociability or desire to establish some kind of contact with humans. Today we will discuss the topic of where do dolphins live what they eat and how captivity weakens them.
How and where do dolphins live?
The habitat of dolphins can be called the places where they live. Their place of residence can be found in any region globe. Here, everything will depend on the type of dolphin, some of them can only live in certain places. One of the species of dolphins is bottlenose dolphin or simply big dolphin .
Bottlenose dolphins are very common and can be seen in many places. Enough a large number of bottlenose dolphins are found in the waters of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, they can be seen in seas such as the Mediterranean, Red and, of course, Black. Places of residence various types dolphins may be nearby coastline, or directly in the ocean shelf zone.
Migration of dolphins seems to be a frequent occurrence, which is associated with the search for an additional source of food. In the same case, if in any area there is enough food for these mammals, then they take root there for a very long time.
For example, consider the bottlenose dolphin. They are almost always close to the coastline and rarely migrate. It depends on the amount of food near the shore, and most often it is there in great abundance. Bottlenose dolphins are exactly the type of dolphin that many people are accustomed to imagining. Bottlenose dolphins can often be seen near the coastline, and this type of dolphin can be seen in almost all dolphinariums. Many people who do not think about this issue may have the impression that all dolphins live exactly like bottlenose dolphins, but this is a mistaken opinion.
In fact, many dolphins migrate, especially those that live in the ocean shelf and have a completely different habitat. Most often, they travel in flocks and choose the right routes to find the required water temperature and sufficient amount of food. Dolphins have the ability to swim hundreds of kilometers to find a source of food.
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Dolphin feeding
Most often, dolphins look for fish of the following species as food:
- mackerel
- mullet
- cod
- herring, etc.
Sometimes, when there are no fish, they feed on squid. The diet of dolphins will depend entirely on what fish are available in the area, as well as what season they migrated here.
Dolphins can live not only in various seas and oceans, but also their “habitat” may be captivity, i.e. various dolphinariums. Never before has man been given so many opportunities for open communication with these mammals. Here you can touch them, feed them and, of course, swim with them. But people, most often, simply do not understand how the dolphins themselves suffer in these conditions, because many of them were caught, and thereby taken out of natural environment a habitat.
Dolphins are quite smart and have high level intelligence, which is very difficult to develop in captivity. Scientists have long provided a lot of evidence that keeping dolphins in captivity causes them great suffering and greatly reduces their life expectancy. So, in the wild, a dolphin can live up to 50-60 years, but in captivity its life expectancy will be reduced to 30 years.
Currently, many organizations have been created that promote the protection of dolphins and are ardent opponents of all existing dolphinariums.
Now you know how where do dolphins live! We hope that the information presented was interesting for you.
None of the residents depths of the sea does not attract human attention like dolphins are sea animals.
Of all the animals on Earth, one of the most mysterious and attracts the attention of people at all times is dolphins. Many of their abilities are so unusual that since ancient times they have been almost deified. Sculptures of dolphins and ancient Greek poetic tales have survived to this day.
Dolphin species
Some people believe that the dolphin is a fish because of its appearance. A long, elongated body with a dorsal fin, a small rounded head with a pointed muzzle and a beak-shaped mouth actually somewhat resemble the outline of a fish. The 40–60 conical teeth are quite sharp.
Actually it's carnivorous mammal, a relative of whales, living both in the salty waters of the seas and in freshwater rivers. Depending on this characteristic, sea and river dolphins are distinguished. There are 40 species in total, according to some sources, about 50, and the majority still prefer warm sea waters.
Dolphin lifestyle
The ancestors of dolphins lived on land in ancient times. Modern animals are inhabitants of water. Their distribution area is the waters of the globe. But they breathe with their lungs, often floating to the surface. A special breathing hole is located on the head in the parietal region.
A perfectly smooth body with a streamlined shape, like a torpedo, helps them to be excellent swimmers. They can reach speeds of up to 50 km per hour. The peculiar structure of the skin with a thick layer of fat underneath also helps in this. To the touch, the skin is soft, elastic, slightly wavy and, surprisingly, has the ability to renew itself in just two hours.
Dolphins live big family, which includes cubs of different generations. At the head is a male leader. Sometimes several families unite in flocks to search for food.
Dolphins are predators. They feed almost exclusively on fish, sometimes crustaceans or mollusks. A school of fish is forced to form a dense school, emitting sounds of a special frequency.
Listen to the voice of a dolphin
The female carries one cub for a long time, almost a year and a half, and feeds it with milk. Childbirth occurs in the air - the female raises her tail high, and the dolphin manages to take her first breath of air in her life. And a moment later he falls into the water. He does not drown because he already has a sufficient supply of subcutaneous fat and an innate ability to swim by moving his front flippers.
It takes him three whole years to reach maturity. The exact life expectancy has not been established, it is believed that it is 20, 30 years.
Amazing abilities of dolphins
Dolphins do not have ears, but they have excellent hearing. They hear with the help of the inner ear, which works as a locator and determines where the object is, what is the distance to it, and can even scan and determine all its signs.
Scientists have discovered that the mass of the dolphin brain is only 300 g less than that of humans, but the convolutions are 2 times larger. Therefore the level mental development theirs are high enough.
Animals have a whole range of complex sounds and are able to put them into words and unique sentences. By chirping and whistling at a high ultrasonic frequency, they inform each other about danger, about the approaching school of fish, or simply invite each other to play.
The beautiful, mesmerizing jumps of dolphins are nothing more than their games. Dolphins all free time are spent communicating with each other and, which is quite unusual, often these games are of a sexual nature.
Dolphins are not afraid of people; they swim to the shore and can play with children. Scientists have found that dolphins during these games are able to treat children from certain mental illnesses. Therefore, specialists widely use communication with dolphins as an officially recognized method of psychotherapy.
First of all, it must be said that dolphins are not fish, despite the fact that they live in water. These creatures are mammals and viviparous, just like all inhabitants of the animal world. In this case, the female gives birth to only one baby, and not many. And the mother bears her child from ten to eighteen months. Animal name that goes back to ancient Greek language, translated as “newborn baby.” What this is connected with is now difficult to determine. Perhaps dolphins received this name for their piercing cry, similar to the cry of a child, or perhaps for their resemblance to a human fetus in the womb.
Dolphins are characterized by the presence in both jaws of a fairly significant number of uniform conical teeth, both nasal openings are usually connected into one transverse crescent-shaped opening at the top of the skull, the head is relatively small, often with a pointed muzzle, the body is elongated, and there is a dorsal fin. Very mobile and dexterous, voracious predators, living mostly socially, are found in all seas, rise high in rivers, feed mainly on fish, mollusks, and crustaceans; sometimes they attack their relatives. They are also distinguished by their curiosity and traditional good attitude to a person. Some dolphins have a mouth extended forward in the form of a beak; in others the head is rounded in front, without a beak-like mouth.
Dolphin species
There are more than seventy species of dolphins in nature. They have specific similarities with each other, such as viviparity, feeding on milk, the presence of respiratory organs, smooth skin and much more. Also in dolphins different types has its own characteristics. Some animals have an elongated bow, others, on the contrary, are depressed. They may differ in color and body weight.
Common dolphin or white sided cetacean - one of the most gregarious, playful and fast cetaceans. Its speed reaches 36 km/h, and when it rides a ship wave near the bow of high-speed ships, it reaches more than 60 km/h. Jumps "candle" up to 5 m, and horizontally up to 9 m. Immerses for 8 minutes, but usually for a time from 10 seconds to 2 minutes.
The Black Sea common dolphin feeds in the upper layer of the sea and does not dive deeper than 60-70 m, but the ocean form catches fish living at depths of 200-250 m. When gathering food, the common dolphin gathers in large herds, sometimes together with other species - pilot whales and short-headed dolphins. It treats humans peacefully, never bites, but does not tolerate captivity well.
White sideds often live in families, which are supposed to be composed of the offspring of several generations of the same female. However, males and lactating females with young animals, as well as pregnant females, sometimes form separate (apparently temporary) schools. During the period of sexual activity, mating groups of sexually mature males and females are also observed. Mutual assistance reaction has been developed.
They live up to 30 years. The sound signals of white sided dolphins are as diverse as those of bottlenose dolphins: quacks, howls, squeaks, croaking, cat calls, but whistling predominates. There were up to 19 different signals. In this species, unusually strong calls, the meaning of which has not been determined, called "shot" (duration 1 s) and "rumble" (duration 3 s) were found to have very high sound pressure (from 30 to 160 bar) and a frequency of 21 kHz.
bottlenose dolphin lives sedentary, or wanders in small flocks. The bottlenose dolphin's tendency to coastal zone explained by the bottom nature of feeding. For food it dives in the Black Sea to a depth of up to 90 m, in the Mediterranean - up to 150 m. There is information that in the Gulf of Guinea it dives to 400-500 m. Under experimental conditions in the USA, it was noted to dive up to 300 m. While hunting for fish, The bottlenose dolphin moves unevenly, jerkily, with frequent sharp turns. Her breathing pauses last from a few seconds to 6-7 minutes, up to a maximum of a quarter of an hour. Most active during the day.
Bottlenose dolphins in captivity breathe 1-4 times per minute, their heart beats 80-140 (on average 100) times per minute. The bottlenose dolphin can reach speeds of up to 40 km/h and jump to a height of up to 5 m.
The bottlenose dolphin skillfully controls the complex vocal apparatus, in which the most significant are three pairs of air sacs connected to the nasal canal. To communicate with each other, bottlenose dolphins emit communication signals with a frequency of 7 to 20 kHz: whistling, barking (chasing prey), meowing (feeding), clapping (terrifying their relatives), etc. When searching for prey and orienting themselves under water, they emit echolocation clicks that resemble creaking of rusty door hinges, frequency 20-170 kHz. American scientists recorded 17 communicative signals in adult bottlenose dolphins, and only 6 in calves. Obviously, the signal system becomes more complex with the age and individual experience of the animal. Of this number, 5 signals turned out to be common for bottlenose dolphins, pilot whales and white drums.
Bottlenose dolphins, like all cetaceans, sleep at the surface of the water, usually at night, and during the day only after feeding, periodically opening their eyelids for 1-2 seconds and closing them for 15-30 seconds. A weak blow from the hanging tail from time to time forces the sleeping animal out of the water for another respiratory act. In sleeping dolphins, one hemisphere sleeps alternately, while the other is awake at this time.
Features of behavior
An interesting fact is that dolphins use echolocation to hunt. Their hearing is designed in such a way that, based on the reflected signal, animals can determine the number of objects, their volume and degree of danger. Dolphins can deafen their prey with high-frequency sounds, paralyzing them. These creatures hunt only in packs, and they also cannot live alone. Dolphin families sometimes number about a hundred individuals. Thanks to these abilities, the animal is never left without abundant food.
Interesting Facts from the life of dolphins include Gray's paradox. James Gray established back in the thirties of the twentieth century that the speed of an animal in water is thirty-seven kilometers per hour, which contradicts the muscular capabilities of the body. According to the scientist, dolphins need to change the streamlining of their bodies in order to develop such speed. Experts from the USA and the USSR puzzled over this question, but final decision it was never accepted.
Dolphins have a weak sense of smell, but excellent vision and absolutely unique hearing. Producing powerful sound pulses, they are capable of echolocation, which allows them to perfectly navigate in the water, find each other and food.
Dolphin speech
Dolphins are capable of producing a wide range of sounds using the nasal air sac located under the blowhole. There are roughly three categories of sounds: frequency-modulated whistles, explosive pulse sounds, and clicks. Clicks are the loudest sounds made by marine life.
Dolphins have a sound signaling system. Signals of two types: echolocation (sonar), which serve animals to explore the situation, detect obstacles, prey, and “chirps” or “whistles”, for communication with relatives, also expressing the emotional state of the dolphin.
The signals are emitted at very high, ultrasonic frequencies that are inaccessible to human hearing. The sound perception of people is in the frequency band up to 20 kHz, dolphins use a frequency of up to 200 kHz.
Scientists have already counted 186 different “whistles” in the “speech” of dolphins. They have approximately the same levels of organization of sounds as a person: six, that is, sound, syllable, word, phrase, paragraph, context, they have their own dialects.
In 2006, a team of British researchers from the University of St. Andrews conducted a series of experiments, the results of which suggest that dolphins are capable of assigning and recognizing names.
Communication with dolphins has a positive effect on the human body, especially on the child’s psyche. British experts came to this conclusion back in 1978. Since that time, the development of “dolphin therapy” began. It is now used to treat many physical and mental illnesses, including autism, and other ailments. Swimming with dolphins relieves chronic pain, improves immunity and even helps children develop speech.
An incredibly romantic fact from the “personal” life of dolphins - ethologists studying Amazon dolphins discovered that males give gifts to potential partners. So, what gift is waiting for a female dolphin to consider as a candidate for procreation? Of course, a bouquet of river algae!
India has become the 4th country to ban the keeping of dolphins in captivity. Previously, similar measures were taken by Costa Rica, Hungary and Chile. Indians call dolphins “a person or person of other origin than “homo sapiens.” Accordingly, the “person” must have its own rights, and its exploitation for commercial purposes is legally unacceptable. Scientists who analyze animal behavior (ethologists) say that it is very difficult to determine the line separating human intelligence and emotions from the nature of dolphins.
Dolphins not only have a "vocabulary" of up to 14,000 sounds that allows them to communicate with each other, but they also have self-awareness, "social awareness" and emotional empathy - a willingness to help newborns and the sick by pushing them to the surface of the water.
Dolphins are famous for their playful behavior and the fact that, for fun, they can blow air bubbles underwater in the form of a ring using a blowhole. These may be large clouds of bubbles, streams of bubbles, or individual bubbles. Some of them act as a kind of communication signals.
Within a school, dolphins form very close bonds. Scientists have noticed that dolphins care for sick, wounded and elderly relatives, and a female dolphin can help another female during a difficult birth. At this time, the dolphins nearby, protecting the female in labor, swim around her for protection.
Another proof of the high intelligence of dolphins is the fact that adults sometimes teach their young to use special tools for hunting. For example, they “dress” sea sponges on their muzzles in order to avoid injury when hunting fish that can hide in bottom sediments of sand and sharp pebbles.
The oldest dolphin in captivity was named Nellie. She lived at Marineland (Florida) and died when she was 61 years old.
When dolphins hunt, they use interesting tactics to drive fish into a trap. They begin to circle around the school of fish, closing the ring, forcing the fish to form a tight ball. Then, one by one, the dolphins snatch the fish from the center of the school, preventing it from leaving.
Reproduction
The life of dolphins is in many ways similar to the life of toothed cetaceans. Like whales, dolphins give birth to their young in the water. At the moment of birth, the female raises her tail high above the water, the baby dolphin is born in the air and manages to inhale air before falling into the water.
For the first hours, the baby dolphin swims like a float, in a vertical position, slightly moving its front flippers: it has accumulated a sufficient supply of fat in the womb and its density is less than the density of water.
The female dolphin carries the calf for ten months. It is born half the length of its mother's body. Like a baby whale, when sucking, a baby dolphin's lips are replaced by a tongue rolled into a tube: it covers the mother's nipple with it, and she splashes milk into his mouth. All this happens under water: the respiratory canal of cetaceans is separated from the esophagus, and a dolphin, like whales, can swallow food under water without fear of choking. Dolphins give birth to one calf every two years. Three years later he becomes an adult. Dolphins live up to 25-30 years.
A dolphin is a representative of the suborder of toothed whales, the order of cetaceans, the dolphin family (lat. Delphinidae). The graceful body of the dolphin has a spindle-shaped, streamlined shape, which allows these mammals to quickly cut through the surface of the water. The dolphin's speed reaches 50 km/h.
People and dolphins.
People have known about the extraordinary intelligence and intelligence of dolphins for a long time. These adorable animals rescue people from ships in distress, preventing them from drowning. You could even say that dolphins are the smartest animals on the planet. Many trainers believe that the intelligence of dolphins can be equated to that of humans, these animals behave so intelligently and unusually.
There is a joke about dolphins that says that if a person had not overtaken the dolphins and had not climbed down from the tree earlier, they would have come out of the water and now would have been the kings of nature, replacing us. The dolphin is smart, kind, beautiful, he is an excellent learner, analyzes and remembers.
Dolphins are directly related to the formidable inhabitants of the oceans, killer whales and. There are about 50 species of dolphins. These include Harbour porpoise, black dolphin, gray dolphin, white-faced dolphin, Atlantic white-sided dolphin. The most popular is the bottlenose dolphin (large dolphin), which is what people mainly mean when talking about encounters with representatives of this species. They are well studied and tamed. Bottlenose dolphins are featured in films and participate in programs for the rehabilitation of children suffering from various neurological ailments.
Dolphin - description and photographs. What does a dolphin look like?
A dolphin is not a fish, but a mammal. Common to all species is an elongated, streamlined body, which is crowned by a small dolphin’s head with a beak-like mouth. Each jaw has 80-100 small conical teeth. The dolphin's teeth are slightly inclined inward. The transition between the muzzle and the frontal part is well defined. Almost all members of the dolphin class have a prominent dorsal fin. The skin is elastic and smooth to the touch. The length of a dolphin can reach 4.5 meters depending on the species.
Dolphins move very easily in the water; they practically do not feel its resistance thanks to special fatty secretions on the skin that facilitate gliding. Interestingly, the friction of water quickly wears off a dolphin’s skin. Therefore, in the deep layers of the skin they have a significant supply of regenerating cells. The dolphin constantly sheds, changing up to 25 layers of skin per day!
Dolphins have small eyes and poor vision. This is due to the fact that animals practically do not use them for hunting. The nostrils are transformed into a blowhole located on the crown.
How do dolphins breathe?
Whales and dolphins are related and can stay underwater for long periods of time without surfacing. The blowhole is closed during such periods. But, like other cetaceans, dolphins still need air underwater and periodically float to the surface to breathe.
Do dolphins have ears?
Dolphins do not have ears. But this does not mean that they have no hearing. Eat! True, it functions differently from other mammals. Sounds are perceived by the inner ear, and air cushions located in the frontal part serve as resonators. But these animals are fluent in echolocation. They accurately determine the location and dimensions of an object by the reflected sound, and the distance to it by the wavelength.
How do dolphins sleep?
Dolphins also have another interesting physiological feature: they never sleep. Animals hang in the water column, periodically rising to the surface to breathe. During rest, they are able to turn off alternately the left and then right hemisphere brain, that is, only one half of the dolphin’s brain sleeps, and the other half is awake.
Where do dolphins live?
The dolphin's habitat is exclusively water bodies. The dolphin lives in almost all places on our planet, with the exception of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Dolphins live in the sea, in the ocean, and also in large freshwater rivers (Amazonian river dolphin). These mammals love space and move freely over long distances.
Dolphin language.
Dolphins are animals social, they live in packs, which can number from 10 to 100 (sometimes more) individuals, fighting off enemies with common efforts. Within the pack there is practically no competition or fights between them; fellow tribesmen coexist peacefully with each other. Dolphins communicate using sounds and signals. Dolphin language extraordinarily varied. The “conversation” of these mammals includes clicking, whistling, barking, and chirping. The spectrum of dolphin voices extends from the most low frequencies before ultrasound. Moreover, they can fold simple sounds into words and sentences, passing information to each other.
What do dolphins eat?
The diet of dolphins includes exclusively fish, with preference given to anchovies. The hunting method used by the animals is also interesting. A school of dolphins finds a school of fish and uses special sounds to force it into a tight group. As a result of such a hunt most of school becomes prey for dolphins. This feature is often used when attacking frightened fish from the air. There are known facts when dolphins helped fishermen by driving a school of fish into their nets.
Sharks and dolphins.
An interesting fact is that dolphins also live in symbiosis. They often hunt together without showing any aggression towards each other.
Types of dolphins.
There are 17 genera in the dolphin family. Most interesting varieties dolphins:
- lives exclusively on the coast of Chile. An animal with rather modest dimensions - the length of the stocky and rather thick body of this cetacean does not exceed 170 cm. The back and sides of the white-bellied dolphin have grey colour, while the throat, belly area and parts of the flippers adjacent to the body are completely white. The flippers and dorsal fin of the white-bellied dolphin are smaller than those of other dolphin species. This type close to extinction, protected by Chilean authorities.
- The length of the sea animal often reaches 2.4 meters, the weight of the dolphin varies between 60-80 kilograms. In the back area common dolphin it is painted dark blue or almost black, the belly is white, and along the light sides there is a striking stripe of a yellowish-gray hue. This species of dolphin lives in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and feels at ease in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Common dolphin can be found on east coast South America, along the coast of New Zealand and South Africa, in the seas of Japan and Korea.
- major representative cetaceans with a body length reaching 3 meters and weighing up to 275 kg. Distinctive feature The white-faced dolphin has a very light, sometimes snow-white muzzle. The habitat of this mammal includes waters North Atlantic, coast of Portugal and Turkey. The dolphin feeds on fish such as navaga, flounder, herring, whiting, as well as mollusks and crustaceans.
- Body length of this marine mammal 2-2.6 meters, weight varies from 90 to 155 kg. Height dorsal fin is 18-28 cm. The color of the dolphin is dominated by gray, with whitish spots scattered throughout it. This species of dolphin is common off the coast of Brazil, in the Gulf of Mexico and California, and lives in warm waters Caribbean and Red Seas.
- The length of the animal can vary from 2.3 to 3.6 meters, and weight from 150 to 300 kg. The body color of the bottlenose dolphin depends on its habitat, but generally the species is dark brown. top part body and greyish-white belly. Sometimes a faint pattern in the form of fuzzy stripes or spots is observed on the sides. The bottlenose dolphin lives in the Mediterranean, Red, Baltic and Black Seas, and is often found in the Pacific Ocean along the coasts of Japan, Argentina and New Zealand.
- distributed in the waters of countries with tropical climate, especially massive populations live along the coast Hawaiian Islands. The torpedo-shaped, light gray body of the animal is crowned with a cone-shaped head of dark gray color. The length of the mammal often reaches 3 meters, and an adult weighs more than 200 kg.
- This member of the genus of humpback dolphins lives in the waters along the coast South-East Asia, but migrates during the breeding season, so it is found in bays, quiet sea lagoons and even rivers washing Australia and the countries of South Africa. The length of the animal can be 2-3.5 meters with a weight of 150-230 kg. Surprisingly, although dolphin calves are born completely black, as they grow, the body color changes first to light gray, with slightly pinkish spots, and adults become almost white. Chinese dolphin feeds on fish and shellfish.
- A distinctive feature of this type of dolphin is the complete absence of a beak on the face and a flexible neck, which gained mobility due to several skin and muscle folds behind the head. The body color of the Irrawaddy dolphin can be either light gray with a blue tint or dark gray, while the belly of the animal is always a shade lighter. The length is aquatic mammal reaches 1.5-2.8 meters with a weight of 115-145 kg. The dolphin's habitat covers warm waters Indian Ocean, starting from the Bay of Bengal and up to the northern coast of Australia.
- lives exclusively in Antarctic and subantarctic waters. The color of the dolphin is black and white, less often – dark gray. Spectacular mark white, covering the sides of the mammal, stretches to its muzzle, framing the eye area. The second mark runs longitudinally along the back of the body, intersecting with the first and forming an hourglass pattern. An adult cross-shaped dolphin has a body length of about 2 meters in length, the weight of the dolphin varies between 90-120 kilograms.
- - a mammal that belongs to the dolphin family, the genus of killer whale. The male killer whale is about 10 meters long and weighs around 8 tons. Females are smaller: their length reaches 8.7 meters. The pectoral flippers of killer whales have a wide oval shape. The teeth of killer whales are quite long - up to 13 cm in length. The sides and back of the mammal are black, the throat is white, and on the belly there is white stripe. There are white spots above the eyes. Sometimes completely black or white individuals are found in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The killer whale lives in all waters of the world's oceans, except Sea of Azov, Black Sea, Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea.
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