The dolphin is a representative of the suborder of toothed whales, the order of cetaceans, the dolphin family (Delphinidae). The graceful body of the dolphin has a spindle-shaped streamlined shape, which allows these mammals to quickly cut through the water surface. The speed of the dolphin reaches 50 km/h.
Humans and Dolphins
People have known about the extraordinary mind and quick wit of dolphins for a long time. These charming 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 a human, these animals behave so intelligently and unusually.
There is a joke about dolphins, which tells that if a person had not overtaken the dolphins and had not climbed down from the tree before, they would come out of the water and now would be the kings of nature, replacing us.
Dolphin is smart, kind, beautiful, he is an excellent student, analyzes, remembers.
Dolphins are in direct relationship with formidable inhabitants of the oceans, killer whales and whales. There are about 50 species of dolphins. These include the porpoise, black dolphin, gray dolphin, white-faced dolphin, Atlantic white-sided dolphin.
The most popular is the bottlenose dolphin (large dolphin), which people basically have in mind when talking about meetings with representatives of this species. They are well studied and tamed. Bottlenose dolphins are filmed in films, they participate in programs for the rehabilitation of children suffering from various neurological ailments.
Dolphin - description and photos. 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 with a small dolphin head with a beak-shaped mouth. Each jaw contains 80-100 small conical teeth. The dolphin's teeth are slightly tilted inwards. 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 supple and smooth to the touch. The length of the dolphin can reach 4.5 meters depending on the species.
Dolphins in the water move very easily, they practically do not feel its resistance due to special fatty secretions on the skin that facilitate gliding. Interestingly, the dolphin's skin is quickly erased from the friction of water. Therefore, in the deep skin layers they have a significant supply of regenerating cells. The dolphin constantly sheds, changing up to 25 layers of skin per day!
The eyes of dolphins are small, vision is poor. 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 of the head.
How do dolphins breathe?
Whales and dolphins are related and can stay under water for a long time without surfacing. The drawbar is closed during such periods. But, like other cetaceans, dolphins still need air underwater and periodically rise to the surface to breathe.
Do dolphins have ears?
Dolphins have no ears. But that doesn't mean they don't have hearing. Eat! True, it functions differently from other mammals. Sounds are perceived by the inner ear, and the 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 the object by the reflected sound, and by the wavelength - the distance to it.
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 for breathing. During rest, they are able to alternately turn off either the left or the right hemisphere of the brain, that is, only one half of the dolphin's brain sleeps, while the other is awake.
Where do dolphins live?
The habitat of the dolphin 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, as well as in large freshwater rivers (Amazonian river dolphin). These mammals love space and move freely over long distances.
Dolphin language
Dolphins are animals social, live in packs, in which there can be from 10 to 100 (sometimes more) individuals, fighting off enemies with common efforts. Inside 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 "talk" of these mammals includes clicking, whistling, barking, and chirping. The dolphin voice spectrum extends from the lowest frequencies to ultrasonic. Moreover, they can combine simple sounds into words and sentences, passing information to each other.
What do dolphins eat?
The diet of dolphins includes only fish, preference is given to sardines and anchovies. The method of hunting used by animals is also interesting. A flock of dolphins finds a school of fish and with special sounds forces it to huddle into a dense group. As a result of such hunting, most of the school becomes the prey of dolphins. This feature is often used by gulls, attacking frightened fish from the air. There are known facts when dolphins helped fishermen by driving a joint to them in the net.
Sharks and dolphins
An interesting fact is that sharks and dolphins live in symbiosis. They often hunt together without showing any aggression towards each other.
Dolphin species
There are 17 genera in the dolphin family. The most interesting varieties of dolphins:
- White-bellied dolphin (black dolphin, Chilean dolphin) ( Cephalorhynchus eutropia)
lives exclusively on the coast of Chile. An animal with a rather modest size - 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 are gray, while the throat, belly area and parts of the flippers adjacent to the body are absolutely white. The flippers and dorsal fin of the white-bellied dolphin are smaller than those of other dolphin species. This species is close to extinction, protected by the Chilean authorities.
- Common dolphin (common dolphin) ( Delphinus delphis)
The length of a marine animal often reaches 2.4 meters, the weight of a dolphin varies between 60-80 kilograms. In the back area, an ordinary dolphin is painted dark blue or almost black, the belly is white, and a spectacular yellowish-gray stripe runs along the light sides. This species of dolphins lives in the waters of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, feels at ease in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Common dolphin spotted on the east coast South America along the coast of New Zealand and South Africa, in the seas of Japan and Korea.
- white-faced dolphin ( Lagenorhynchus albirostris)
a large representative of 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 the waters of the North Atlantic, the coast of Portugal and Turkey. The dolphin feeds on fish such as capelin, saffron cod, flounder, herring, cod, whiting, as well as mollusks and crustaceans.
- Large-toothed dolphin ( Steno bredanensis)
The body length of this marine mammal is 2-2.6 meters, weight varies from 90 to 155 kg. The height of the dorsal fin is 18-28 cm. The color of the dolphin is dominated by gray, over which whitish spots are “scattered”. This species of dolphin is common off the coast of Brazil, in the Gulf of Mexico and California, lives in the warm waters of the Caribbean and Red Seas.
- bottlenose dolphin (large dolphin or bottlenose dolphin) ( Tursiops truncatus)
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 the habitat, but basically the species has a dark brown upper body and a grayish-white belly. Sometimes there is a weakly pronounced pattern in the form of fuzzy stripes or spots 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.
- Broad-faced dolphin (beakless dolphin) ( Peponocephala electra)
distributed in the waters of countries with a tropical climate, especially mass populations live along the coast of the Hawaiian Islands. The torpedo-shaped, light gray body of the animal is crowned with a cone-shaped dark gray head. The length of a mammal often reaches 3 meters, and an adult individual weighs more than 200 kg.
- Chinese dolphin ( sousa chinensis)
This representative of the genus of humpback dolphins lives in the waters along the coast of Southeast Asia, but migrates during the breeding season, therefore it is found in bays, quiet sea lagoons and even rivers washing Australia and South Africa. The length of the animal can be 2-3.5 meters with a weight of 150-230 kg. Surprisingly, although dolphins are born absolutely black, as they grow, the body color changes first to light gray, with slightly pinkish spots, and adults become almost white. The Chinese dolphin feeds on fish and shellfish.
- Irrawaddy dolphin ( Orcaella brevirostris)
A distinctive feature of this species of dolphins is the complete absence of a beak on the muzzle and a flexible neck, which received mobility due to several skin and muscle folds behind the head. The color of the body 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 tone lighter. In length, this aquatic mammal reaches 1.5-2.8 meters and weighs 115-145 kg. The dolphin's habitat covers the waters of the warm Indian Ocean, from the Bay of Bengal to the northern coast of Australia.
- Cruciform Dolphin ( Lagenorhynchus cruciger)
lives exclusively in the waters of the Antarctic and subantarctic. The color of the dolphin is black and white, less often - dark gray. Spectacular mark white color, covering the sides of the mammal, stretches to its muzzle, framing the eye area. The second mark runs along the back of the body, intersecting with the first and forming an hourglass pattern. An adult cruciform dolphin has a body length of about 2 meters in length, the weight of a dolphin varies between 90-120 kilograms.
- Killer whale (killer whale) ( Orcinus orca)
a mammal that belongs to the dolphin family, a genus of killer whales. The male killer whale has a length of about 10 meters and a weight of around 8 tons. Females are smaller: their length reaches 8.7 meters. Pectoral flippers of killer whales have a wide oval shape. Killer whale teeth 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 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 oceans, except for the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea, the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea.
Dolphin breeding, baby dolphins
Dolphins do not have a pronounced mating season. Reproduction occurs at any time of the year. Mates with females, as a rule, the leader of the pack. Pregnancy lasts approximately 18 weeks and is quite difficult. The female dolphin becomes clumsy, loses the ability to move quickly and often becomes the prey of enemies. The dolphin brings 1 cub about once every 2 years. Small dolphins about 50-60 centimeters long are born right afloat, fully capable and able to follow their mother from the first minutes.
baby dolphins feed on mother's milk, eat frequently and grow rapidly. Feeding stops by one and a half years, when the dolphin begins to feed on fish on its own.
The upbringing and education of babies is carried out exclusively by females. Male dolphins are not caring fathers.
- The level of development of dolphins is extremely high, so they devote a lot of time not only to getting food, but also to communication, games and even sex. These are perhaps the only animals (except humans, of course) whose sexual relations go beyond procreation. These mammals play with great pleasure: dolphins jump out of the water for several meters, just hovering for a moment or making complex figures in the air, pirouettes, screws. Playing dolphins very often attract the attention of ship passengers.
- Unlike fish, the dolphin swings its tail in an up/down direction.
- In the mouth of a sexually mature dolphin, there are 210 sharp teeth, while they play a role only in capturing food, but dolphins swallow their prey without chewing, since they do not have a chewing reflex.
- Dolphins don't sleep! Rather, only one hemisphere of the brain sleeps in them, while the second is awake and intuitively pushes the dolphin to the surface of the water surface to take another breath.
- It is currently forbidden to hunt these interesting and charming animals. Despite all conservation measures, the number of dolphins is declining, and some of them are almost extinct. Now many water parks are working on breeding endangered species, as well as studying and training dolphins.
A dolphin is a mobile and agile predator, a social animal that lives in all seas, rises high along the rivers, feeds on fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. Dolphins are distinguished by their curiosity and good attitude towards people. Dolphins swim very fast, their flocks often accompany ships. Since ancient times, the dolphin has become a favorite and popular animal: legends, poems and stories were composed about it, sculptures were made. The term "dolphin" is of Greek origin and goes back to the words "bosom" and "womb". It is assumed that it can be interpreted as a "newborn" (according to its external resemblance to babies or the similarity of the calls of dolphins and children).
All species of dolphins have a naked streamlined body, flexible and muscular, with highly modified fin limbs, a small head with a sharp snout and a dorsal fin. The head is distinguished by a pronounced transition between the forehead and nose. The eyes are small, vision is poor. There are no tactile vibrissae and no sense of smell. The dolphin's nostrils are a single breathing hole located on the crown of the head, which allows the animal to breathe even when almost completely submerged under water. Dolphins don't have ears. The hearing of the animal is provided by the inner ear, and the air cushion in the frontal lobes. Dolphin echolocation is perfect. It picks up reflected sound waves and determines the location of objects environment, distance to them and their nature (density, structure, materials). That is, in fact, the dolphin sees the world through sounds. The dolphin itself makes sounds: crackling, clicking, clattering, chirping. All these sounds are diverse and complex, used for communication. A dolphin has 40-60 teeth, small and uniform.
The body of the dolphin is naked, the structure of the skin reduces the friction of water and improves hydrodynamic qualities. Due to the mobility of the animal, the outer layer of the skin wears out quickly: during the day, on average, 25 cell layers of the skin are replaced. There are two color options for dolphins: plain (gray, black, pink) and contrasting, black and white.
The dolphin's diet consists only of fish, small and medium (anchovies, sardines). The dolphin is characterized by a unique fishing technique. At first, the herd explores the water with the help of echolocation, if a school is found, the dolphins approach it, making sounds at a special frequency that causes panic in the fish. The fish, in turn, stray together, thanks to which the dolphins catch it with a common effort. At the same time, they exhale air, creating a kind of barrier around the fish, and catch most of the school. Interestingly, gulls and boobies track the behavior of dolphins from the air and join their meals.
The habitat of dolphins is quite wide, including almost the entire planet. They are not found only in the cold waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. Basically, dolphins inhabit the seas and oceans, some species - large rivers. Dolphins prefer open spaces, move freely in the oceans and can come close to the coast.
Common Dolphin Species
- Common dolphin (Delphinus delphis L.) - body from above and fins are grayish or greenish-black, belly is white, skin is smooth and shiny. Body length about 2 m, dorsal fin 80 cm high, width of pectoral fins 15-18 cm, length 55-60 cm. It lives in the seas of the northern hemisphere, lives in flocks of 10, 100 and up to 1000 individuals.
- Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are a well-known and popular dolphin species that lives all over the globe. The body is dark, gray or brown above, lighter below. In length from 2 to 4 m, weighs 100-300 kg.
Dolphins do not have a distinct sexual dimorphism. Males and females are similar in appearance, only the former are usually slightly larger in size.
Dolphins are highly developed social animals. They are distinguished by a friendly disposition, peaceful relations in packs, where fights do not occur, and there is no fierce competition. The pack is led by an experienced leader. Dolphins communicate with each other using a variety of sounds, each member of the flock has its own individual voice. Dolphins have different signals to warn of danger, the presence of food, or to express a desire to play. From simple sounds, a dolphin is able to compose a complex, and even a whole sentence, which is very reminiscent of speech. Dolphins are recognized as highly developed animals, and their intelligence is equated to great apes.
Dolphins breed throughout the year. They do not have special mating rituals, the male leader mates with the female while moving, and even the birth of a cub occurs “on the go”. The baby is born tail first and is immediately able to independently swim behind the mother to the surface for the first breath. The mother helps him by pushing him up with his nose. At first, the baby is fed with mother's milk, but rather quickly switches to adult food and an adult lifestyle.
The main enemies of the dolphin are sharks and related species such as the large dolphin. Since ancient times, people have also hunted dolphins, but not on an industrial scale, since a dolphin can become a maximum source of meat, and even then not the best palatability. For this reason, dolphins were hunted by the inhabitants of the north and sailors.
Certain species of dolphins are currently endangered, mainly due to death in fishing nets, oil spills, wounds from ship propellers (for example, the New Zealand subspecies of Hector's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus hectori maui, for which less than 150 individuals have been recorded). dolphins are also kept in water parks, where after a complex training program, animals participate in entertainment shows.
- One of the methods of modern psychotherapy - dolphin therapy, is built on the communication of people with dolphins. It is carried out as communication, play and simple joint exercises under the supervision of specialists. The method is used to treat children with cerebral palsy, early childhood autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and also to relieve contractions during childbirth.
- In the United States, there are special combat dolphins trained for military purposes. They are capable of detecting underwater mines, rescuing sailors after the destruction of a ship, and finding enemy combatants. The dolphins helped search for sunken missile launchers, anti-submarine missile warheads and training mines, sometimes doing better than divers. In the middle of the last century, the US Navy was accused of training dolphins to harm people, deliver weapons, etc., but all such accusations were refuted.
- One of the most popular entertainments since the last century has become dolphinariums - special aquariums where trained dolphins are shown to the audience. Mostly killer whales and bottlenose dolphins. These smart and friendly animals are highly trainable and can perform complex and beautiful numbers, which are well-deserved love of thousands of spectators around the world.
Dolphins are marine mammals that belong to the suborder of toothed whales. They are found in the seas and oceans, as well as rivers that have access to the sea. They feed, as a rule, on crustaceans, mollusks, fish, and some do not disdain sea turtles and birds.
Where do dolphins live?
The habitat of the dolphin 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, as well as in large freshwater rivers (Amazonian river dolphin). These mammals love space and move freely over long distances.
Description
The length of dolphins ranges from one and a half to ten meters. The smallest dolphin in the world is Maui, which lives near New Zealand: the length of the female does not exceed 1.7 meters. A large inhabitant of the deep sea is considered to be a white-faced dolphin about three meters long. The largest representative is the killer whale: the length of males reaches ten meters.
It is worth noting that males are usually ten to twenty centimeters longer than females (the exception is killer whale dolphins - here the difference is about two meters). They weigh on average from one hundred and fifty to three hundred kilograms, killer whale - about a ton.
The back of sea dolphins is gray, blue, dark brown, black and even pink (albino) colors. The front of the head can be either solid or white (for example, a white-faced dolphin has a white beak and front of the forehead).
In some species, the mouth is rounded in front, the beak-shaped mouth is absent. In others, small sizes, the head ends in an elongated mouth in the form of a flattened “beak”, and the mouth is shaped so that people watching them seem to be always smiling, and therefore they often have an irresistible desire to swim with dolphins. At the same time, even a huge number of teeth of the same cone-shaped shape does not spoil the impression - dolphins have about two hundred of them.
Due to the elongated body and smooth, elastic skin, these animals almost do not feel water resistance during movement. Because of this, they are able to move very quickly ( average speed dolphin is 40 km / h), dive to a depth of about one hundred meters, jump out of the water nine meters in height and five in length.
Another unique feature of these marine mammals is that almost all species of dolphins (with the exception of the Amazonian river dolphin and several other varieties) see well both underwater and above the surface. They have this ability due to the structure of the retina, one part of which is responsible for the image in the water, the other - above its surface.
Since whales and dolphins are relatives, like all representatives of cetaceans, they are quite capable of staying under water for a long period. But, they still need oxygen, so they constantly float to the surface, showing a blue muzzle and replenishing air supplies through a drawbar, which overlaps under water. Even during sleep, the animal is fifty centimeters from the surface and, without waking up, swims out every half a minute.
Dolphin species
There are 17 genera in the dolphin family. The most interesting varieties of dolphins:
- White-bellied dolphin (black dolphin, Chilean dolphin) (lat. Cephalorhynchus eutropia) lives exclusively on the coast of Chile. An animal with a rather modest size - 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 are gray, while the throat, belly area and parts of the flippers adjacent to the body are absolutely white. The flippers and dorsal fin of the white-bellied dolphin are smaller than those of other dolphin species. This species is close to extinction, protected by the Chilean authorities.
- Common dolphin (common dolphin) (lat. Delphinus delphis). The length of a marine animal often reaches 2.4 meters, the weight of a dolphin varies between 60-80 kilograms. In the back area, an ordinary dolphin is painted dark blue or almost black, the belly is white, and a spectacular yellowish-gray stripe runs along the light sides. This species of dolphins lives in the waters of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, feels at ease in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There is a common dolphin on the east coast of South America, along the coasts of New Zealand and South Africa, in the seas of Japan and Korea.
- White-faced dolphin (lat. Lagenorhynchus albirostris) - a large representative of cetaceans with a body length reaching 3 meters and weighing up to 275 kg. A distinctive feature of the white-faced dolphin is a very light, sometimes snow-white muzzle. The habitat of this mammal includes the waters of the North Atlantic, the coast of Portugal and Turkey. The dolphin feeds on fish such as capelin, saffron cod, flounder, herring, cod, whiting, as well as mollusks and crustaceans.
- Large-toothed dolphin (lat. Steno bredanensis). The body length of this marine mammal is 2-2.6 meters, weight varies from 90 to 155 kg. The height of the dorsal fin is 18-28 cm. The color of the dolphin is dominated by gray, over which whitish spots are “scattered”. This species of dolphin is common off the coast of Brazil, in the Gulf of Mexico and California, lives in the warm waters of the Caribbean and Red Seas.
- Bottlenose dolphin (large dolphin or bottlenose dolphin) (lat. Tursiops truncatus). 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 the habitat, but basically the species has a dark brown upper body and a grayish-white belly. Sometimes there is a weakly pronounced pattern in the form of fuzzy stripes or spots 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.
- Broad-faced dolphin (beakless dolphin) (lat. Peponocephala electra) distributed in the waters of countries with a tropical climate, especially mass populations live along the coast of the Hawaiian Islands. The torpedo-shaped, light gray body of the animal is crowned with a cone-shaped dark gray head. The length of a mammal often reaches 3 meters, and an adult individual weighs more than 200 kg.
- Chinese dolphin (lat. Sousa chinensis). This representative of the genus of humpback dolphins lives in the waters along the coast of Southeast Asia, but migrates during the breeding season, therefore it is found in bays, quiet sea lagoons and even rivers washing Australia and South Africa. The length of the animal can be 2-3.5 meters with a weight of 150-230 kg. Surprisingly, although dolphins are born absolutely black, as they grow, the body color changes first to light gray, with slightly pinkish spots, and adults become almost white. The Chinese dolphin feeds on fish and shellfish.
- Irrawaddy dolphin (lat. Orcaella brevirostris). A distinctive feature of this species of dolphins is the complete absence of a beak on the muzzle and a flexible neck, which received mobility due to several skin and muscle folds behind the head. The color of the body 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 tone lighter. In length, this aquatic mammal reaches 1.5-2.8 meters and weighs 115-145 kg. The dolphin's habitat covers the waters of the warm Indian Ocean, from the Bay of Bengal to the northern coast of Australia.
- Cruciform dolphin (lat. Lagenorhynchus cruciger) lives exclusively in the waters of the Antarctic and subantarctic. The color of the dolphin is black and white, less often - dark gray. A spectacular white marking, covering the sides of the mammal, stretches to its muzzle, framing the eye area. The second mark runs along the back of the body, intersecting with the first and forming an hourglass pattern. An adult cruciform dolphin has a body length of about 2 meters in length, the weight of a dolphin varies between 90-120 kilograms.
- Killer whale (killer whale) (lat. Orcinus orca)- a mammal that belongs to the dolphin family, a genus of killer whales. The male killer whale has a length of about 10 meters and a weight of around 8 tons. Females are smaller: their length reaches 8.7 meters. Pectoral flippers of killer whales have a wide oval shape. Killer whale teeth are quite long - up to 13 cm in length. The sides and back of the mammal are black, the throat is white, and there is a white stripe on the belly. 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 oceans, except for the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea, the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea.
Dolphin Speed Mystery
In 1936, the British zoologist Sir James Gray (Sir James Gray) drew attention to the enormous speed (up to 37 km / h, according to him), which dolphins manage to develop. Having made the necessary calculations, Gray showed that, according to the laws of hydrodynamics, it is impossible to achieve such a high speed with the muscle strength that dolphins possess. This riddle is known as the Gray paradox. The search for its solution to one degree or another continues to this day. At different times, various teams of researchers put forward various explanations for the phenomenal speed of dolphins, but there is still no unambiguous and universally recognized answer to this question.
Ability to regenerate
Dolphins have an incredible ability to heal themselves. If they receive any kind of wound - even a large one - they do not bleed and do not die from infection, as one might assume. Instead, their flesh begins to regenerate at a rapid pace, so that after only a few weeks, a deep wound, such as from a shark's teeth, leaves almost no visible scars. Interestingly, the behavior of injured animals is practically no different from normal. This suggests that the nervous system of dolphins is capable of blocking pain sensations in critical situations.
Why don't dolphins freeze underwater?
Finally, let's find out why dolphins, being warm-blooded, do not freeze in water. Their body temperature is 36.6 degrees. In the northern seas, animals need to keep warm. Water, which conducts heat up to twenty-five times more efficiently than air, allows you to freeze much faster than in air.
Why do dolphins do such miracles?! This is due to the large layer of fat under the skin. They can control their circulation and metabolism. This makes it possible to support normal temperature body, according to wikipedia.
How do dolphins breathe?
Whales and dolphins are related and can stay under water for a long time without surfacing. The drawbar is closed during such periods. But, like other cetaceans, dolphins still need air underwater and periodically rise to the surface to breathe.
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 for breathing. During rest, they are able to alternately turn off either the left or the right hemisphere of the brain, that is, only one half of the dolphin's brain sleeps, while the other is awake.
How are they born?
Do you know how dolphins are born? The bottlenose dolphin bears a baby for about a year. He is born tail first. The eyes of the cub are immediately open, and the senses are as developed as possible. Moreover, the barely born dolphin already has enough coordination to follow in the footsteps of the mother, who helps to rise to the surface. Then follows the first breath in the life of a baby dolphin. This trusting relationship between a baby dolphin and its mother lasts approximately 3 to 8 years.
Dolphins and humans: who is smarter?
When dolphins began to be studied and trained in the middle of the last century, the first results of this work seemed so unusual, and even surprising (they talked about it a lot, wrote about it and made films), that a legend gradually emerged about the unusually high intelligence of dolphins; one could often hear that they are no more stupid than a person, only their mind is different.
The brain of an adult dolphin weighs about 1700 grams, while that of a human weighs 1400. The dolphin has twice as many convolutions in the cerebral cortex. At the same time, there are relatively few neurons in a cubic millimeter of its substance (less than in the brain of primates).
The results of research on the behavior and physiology of the dolphin brain are highly controversial. Some put their learning ability at about the level of a dog and show that dolphins are very far from chimpanzees. The study of dolphin communication methods, on the contrary, leads to the conclusion that we have not yet come close to understanding this form of life in natural conditions and it is simply incorrect to compare the level of intelligence of dolphins and chimpanzees.
One property of the dolphin brain is quite unique: it never truly sleeps. Sleep - alternately - then the left, then the right hemispheres of the brain. The dolphin needs, from time to time, to float to the surface to breathe. At night, the awake halves of the brain are responsible for this, in turn.
Dolphin communication
Dolphin language can be divided into 2 groups:
- Sign language(language of the body) - various poses, jumps, turns, various ways swimming, signs given by the tail, head, fins.
- The language of sounds(proper language) - sound signaling, expressed in the form of sound pulses and ultrasound. Examples of such sounds can be: chirping, buzzing, screeching, grinding, clicking, smacking, creaking, clapping, squeaking, roaring, screaming, screaming, croaking, whistling.
The most expressive are whistles, which dolphins have 32 types. Each of them can denote a specific phrase (pain signals, alarms, greetings and a call to me, etc.). Scientists studied the whistle of dolphins using the Zipf method, and obtained the same slope coefficient as that of human languages, that is, they carry information. IN Lately found in dolphins 180 communication signs who are trying to systematize, compiling a dictionary of communication of these mammals. However, despite numerous studies, it has not yet been possible to fully decipher the language of dolphins.
Dolphin names
Each dolphin has its own name, to which it responds when relatives address it. This conclusion was reached by American scientists, the results of which were published in the Bulletin of the US National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Moreover, experts who conducted their experiments in the US state of Florida found that the name is given to the dolphin at birth and is a characteristic whistle.
Scientists caught 14 light gray bottlenose dolphins in the wild with nets and recorded various sounds made by these mammals in the process of their communication with each other. Then, with the help of a computer, “names” were isolated from the records. When a name was "played out" for a pack, a specific individual responded to it. The “name” of a dolphin is a characteristic whistle, the average duration of which is 0.9 seconds
official recognition
The Government of India recently removed dolphins from the animal category and gave them the status of "non-human beings". Thus, India became the first country to recognize the presence of intelligence and self-awareness in dolphins. In this regard, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of India has banned any performance using dolphins and called for respect for their special rights.
- There are 43 species of dolphins. 38 of them are marine, the rest are river inhabitants.
- It turns out that in ancient times dolphins were terrestrial, and only later adapted to life in the water. Their fins resemble legs. So our sea friends might once have been land wolves.
- Images of dolphins were carved in the desert city of Petra, Jordan. Petra was founded as early as 312 BC. This gives reason to consider dolphins as one of the most ancient animals.
- Dolphins are the only animals whose babies are born tail first. Otherwise, the baby may drown.
- A dolphin can drown if a tablespoon of water enters its lungs. For comparison, a person needs two tablespoons to choke.
- Dolphins breathe through an adapted nose, which is located at the top of their head.
- Dolphins can see with the help of sound, they send out signals that travel long distances and bounce off objects. This allows the animals to judge the distance to the object, its shape, density and texture.
- Dolphins are superior to bats in their sonar ability.
- During sleep, dolphins stay on the surface of the water to be able to breathe. For control, one half of the animal's brain is always awake.
- The Cove won an Oscar as a documentary on dolphin treatment in Japan. The film explores the theme of cruelty to dolphins and the high risk of mercury poisoning from eating dolphins.
- It is assumed that hundreds of years ago, dolphins did not have such an ability to echolocate. It is a quality acquired with evolution.
- Dolphins do not use their 100 teeth to chew food. With their help, they catch fish, which they swallow whole. Dolphins don't even have chewing muscles!
- IN Ancient Greece Dolphins were called sacred fish. Killing a dolphin was considered sacrilege.
- Scientists have found that dolphins give themselves names. Each individual has its own personal whistle.
- Breathing in these animals is not an automatic process, like in humans. The dolphin's brain signals when to breathe.
Dolphins are mammals that belong to the order of cetaceans and live in the water. They are very similar in appearance to fish, but they are not fish. There are quite a few types of dolphins. Each species of dolphin differs more in external features than in lifestyle. In total, about 40 species of dolphins are distinguished. There are also river dolphins.
Dolphins are famous for their high level intellect, good attitude to people. There are many cases when dolphins saved human lives. They also help treat psychological illnesses. Very intelligent and kind animals of our planet.
Family: Dolphin
Class: Mammals
Order: Cetaceans
Type: Chordates
Kingdom: Animals
Domain: Eukaryotes
Dolphin Anatomy
The common dolphin reaches a length of approximately 2 meters. Both jaws consist of 100-200 conical teeth. On the back there is a dorsal fin about 70-80 cm high, as well as pectoral fins about 50-60 cm long. Depending on its species, a dolphin can weigh from 40 kg to 3 tons.
The most common and famous species of dolphin, which is known to everyone, is called bottlenose dolphin. A little different big size. The length of the bottlenose dolphin reaches 3.5 - 4.5 meters.
Dolphins have a small pointed head and an elongated body. They are very agile and strong. They are predators by nature. In some species of dolphins, the mouth is elongated in the form of a beak. The brains of dolphins are quite large. It is larger than human brain. Also, the convolutions are twice as large as in humans. Dolphins are very smart animals.
The pink dolphin has the shape of a mouth in the form of a beak:
Dolphin Habitat
Dolphins can be found in almost all seas and oceans. You cannot meet them only in the very cold waters of the seas and oceans of our planet. They can climb high into rivers. They love space very much.
Dolphin lifestyle
Dolphins are social animals. A distinctive feature of dolphins is the fact that they do not fight among themselves, but coexist peacefully. They move on water in groups from several tens to several thousand individuals. They have their own language of communication, which includes about 14,000 signals.
Signals are emitted at ultrasonic frequencies that the human ear cannot distinguish. Signals are divided into echolocation (for studying the area) and chirping (communication with each other, expressing one's emotions). Dolphin sounds are like chirping, clicking or whistling. Scientists have proven that dolphins communicate with each other in their own language. They even have full sentences in their speech! Scientists suggest that dolphins are able to assign and recognize each other's names. Also, dolphins have compassion for the weaker ones, and are ready to help the injured or newborns, pushing them to the surface.
Dolphins can stay under water for a long time. However, periodically he needs to rise to the surface and inhale the air. Perhaps that is why they have another feature. During sleep, they alternately turn off only one half of the brain. At this time, they seem to hang under water and only periodically rise to the surface in order to breathe air. While one half of the brain is resting, the other half is working. There is no clearly defined interval between breaths of air, but such an interval does not exceed 30 minutes. Not able to survive outside the aquatic habitat. In height, they are able to jump out of the water to a height of up to 6 meters.
Dolphins move quite quickly in the water. Their speed can reach up to 50 km/h. In dolphins, friction of the skin against water quickly wears off the skin. Therefore, a dolphin is capable of molting up to 25 times a day. They have very large stock regenerating cells.
It has also been proven by scientists that dolphins are able to treat mental illness in children and these methods are now widely used in the treatment of children. Dolphins spend a lot of their time playing. They have sexual intercourse not only at a certain biological time, but also just for pleasure, which distinguishes them from other representatives of mammals. Easily trainable.
What do dolphins eat?
Representatives of dolphins are predators. Their favorite food is fish, crustaceans, molluscs. An interesting fact is the way they hunt fish. With special sounds, dolphins force the fish to gather in a dense group, most of which becomes their prey. Friendship between dolphins and sharks has also been seen. They can hunt fish together without the shark attacking the dolphins.
Mammal dolphin - video:
Dolphin breeding
Dolphins give birth to their young on the surface of the water. The gestation period for a female lasts from 10 to 18 months. During childbirth, other dolphins protect the mother giving birth from shark attacks. After birth, a newborn dolphin reaches a length of approximately 50 cm. A dolphin is born tail first. After the birth, the mother immediately lifts the newborn baby into the air so that the dolphin takes its first breath of air. For about three years, the mother is next to the child. At the same time, in the first year of life, the dolphin feeds on the milk of its mother.
Scientific studies have shown that in the first month a newborn baby dolphin does not sleep. Mom dolphin in the first months constantly protects her child and also has to stay awake for the first month of her child's life. The dolphin reaches sexual maturity at the age of 3 years. The approximate life expectancy of dolphins, according to scientists, is 20-30 years.
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Dolphins are one of the most unusual inhabitants of the sea. According to legend, they were companions of the ancient gods. Scientists are trying to talk to them in the most direct sense of the word. It is already an indisputable fact that communication with these marine mammals is healing, a whole trend in medical rehabilitation is used where possible.
No one really could not explain the friendliness of the dolphin towards humans. It seems that a person floundering in the water awakens in them something like maternal feelings. Do not count the stories of eyewitnesses about how dolphins rescued drowning people. But in the mouth of this mammal there is a real palisade of teeth that look quite intimidating. However, it is with these teeth that a dolphin can pick up a drowning person and pull him to the surface, and do it extremely gently and affectionately. By the way, bottlenose dolphins and other brothers in the oceans use the formidable “weapon” exclusively to grab gaping fish and do not bother chewing food. They swallow their prey whole.
Some scientists believe that dolphins have long sought to communicate with us. They often unexpectedly approach people and ships. They jump, move, whistle, as if they want to tell us something.
There is an insurmountable difference between us. This is the frequency range of audio signals. We, that is, Homo sapiens, exchange news, give lectures or notations in a frequency band not exceeding 20 kilohertz. Gifted musicians can distinguish up to 40. And for dolphins, it’s completely normal level perception at frequencies up to 300 kilohertz. They use sound signals of a wide variety of frequencies. The ultrasounds emitted by them serve mainly for echolocation. In the language of dolphins, whistles are very important, which are used in different situations, expressing a whole range of feelings. They are very diverse in their characteristics - each dolphin has its own manner of speech. Therefore, by the nature of the whistle, dolphins in a group recognize each other.
It was the possession of ultrasound that attracted the military at one time, who used trained dolphins to search for underwater objects, detect and destroy scuba divers. Underwater live "torpedoes" are capable of detecting objects at a distance of up to a whole kilometer with their ultrasonic echolocators, not only in the dark, but also under a layer of silt.
California researchers analyzed the communication structure of dolphins. We learned a startling fact. It turned out that the children of the sea have about the same levels of organization of sounds as a person: six. Sound, syllable, word, phrase, paragraph, context. For a person, semantic meaning arises, starting with a word. And from what step mutual understanding appears among dolphins is still unknown. However, scientists came to the conclusion that the complexity of the organization of sound signals in humans and dolphins is almost the same. And they also have their own dialects - something like human foreign languages.
The meaning of many signals is still unclear, but the researchers managed to decipher some sounds. For example, jaw clapping is a threat signal, a loud squeal is severe pain, yelping is the expectation of food, and a sound such as barking is a conversation between males and females during the mating season. Dolphins are good at imitating extraneous sounds. Some scientists have no doubt that, over time, dolphins can be taught meaningful human speech.
Until recently, scientists seriously believed that dolphins do not sleep at all or almost at all, otherwise they can choke (or suffocate) without atmospheric air. However, a more thorough study of the habits of neighbors on the planet made it possible to find out that they still remain in the arms of Morpheus, only in a very peculiar way. During sleep, they turn off one half of the brain and the opposite eye. The other half of the brain is awake at the same time, not forgetting to give commands to the dolphin to rise to the surface in time to take a breath of air. And the second eye remains alert in case of the appearance of predators or other danger. Such a dream takes about 6-7 hours a day. Dolphins usually sleep half a meter from the surface of the water, lowering their tail down.
There are many notable parallels between the two species, Homo sapiens and Orcinus orca. They, like us, can eat anyone, but no one attacks them. Their lifespan is about the same as that of humans, they mature at the same age, are very sociable, live in families. Dolphins, like us, breathe air; at birth, females feed their cubs with milk.
In terms of intelligence, by the way, dolphins are mammals that have the largest brain size relative to its height. On average, a dolphin's brain is 20-30 percent larger than a human's. So, if in the process of evolution they would have turned out to be “land” earthlings, it is still unknown who would become the “king of nature”.
Perhaps it is thanks to their mind that dolphins live in the water, although it seems that once in incomprehensible antiquity, the firmament of the earth was a familiar element for them. If you look at the skeleton of a dolphin, you can see that the bones of long fingers are still preserved in the upper fins, these are the last traces of being on earth. But the hands gradually turned into fins, thanks to which marine life swims very quickly. Maybe in ancient times, the ancestors of modern dolphins realized that it’s simply more convenient for them to live in water: you can move in any of three directions, you don’t need a roof over your head and clothes, tools are also useless. So why complicate things?
