Why Are Dolphins so Playful?

          Dolphins are so playful because they are very social animals, and they use play to learn how to hunt.Dolphins will  play with each other, seaweed and pieces of driftwood.

 

How Do Dolphins Hunt?

 

          Dolphins have very good eyesight, although they also use their hearing to navigate their way around the ocean water. Dolphins, like other toothed whales, use echolocation to find food. They will make short clicks and listen for the echoes, which reveals the location of the fish. Dolphin pods will chase fish, sometimes swimming nearly 25 miles per hour, before encircling a school of fish. As the pod keeps tight control of the fish, individual dolphins will swim into the school and take turns eating. Dolphins will also chase fish into shallow water. This is called corraling, and it helps the dolphins to capture the fish easier. Bottlenose dolphins will sometimes drive fish onto muddy banks for capture. Some dolphins will use their flukes to stun their prey, sometimes flipping them out of the water.

How Do Dolphins Fight Sharks?

 

Dolphins and sharks inhabit the same regions and depths of the oceans. Sharks have a reputation as fierce predators, armed with rows of sharp serrated teeth that can bite through flesh and bone with ease. Sharks have a very tough, sandpaper-like skin that is not easily punctured. Dolphins are seen as intelligent, playful mammals with only a single row of peg-like teeth used mainly for catching smaller fish. Their skin is soft, flexible and can be cut easily. Dolphins are sometimes seen protecting an injured or sick member of their group, which is often a member of their extended family, from shark attacks. Dolphins have even been known to protect humans from sharks in the water and even carry people safely to shore.

Though at first glance sharks and dolphins seem similar in size and shape, there are many differences between them. Sharks are an ancient order of fish, with skeletons of cartilage. Dolphins are descended from mammals that have returned to the sea, and they have skeletons with hard calcified bones. The skeletons of sharks have joints that are not as flexible as the dolphins'. Dolphins are much swifter than sharks and can maneuver very quickly and agilely in the water. The tail of a dolphin and a shark are also different. A shark's tail has fins on a vertical plane that move from side to side, which limits its ability to quickly dive downward or rise upward . A dolphin's tail has horizontally mounted flukes that move up and down, which enables a dolphin to easily change direction upward or downward in the water.

Since dolphins normally travel together in a group, if one of them is threatened by a shark, the other members of the group will join in to defend the dolphin that is in danger. The dolphin's main weapon is their snout, which is made of very strong and thick bone, and has a hard, rounded end. The dolphins circle the shark very rapidly from different directions, which causes the shark to become confused and unable to chase any one of the dolphins. When a dolphin is positioned below a shark at a distance of several yards, the dolphin will make a suddenly rush at the shark's softer underbelly and ram it with his snout. The effect is like an extremely powerful punch. The shark can be seriously injured with a single blow, and they are often stunned or knocked unconscious. The dolphins will sometimes repeatedly ram a shark that has been very aggressive, and will often kill a large, dangerous shark.

Crosses Dolphins and Whales

Crossbreeding Could Cross-Species fertile?

Back when I was still a high school student, a biology teacher explains that cross-species mating may be done, but always the result of sterile offspring (non-fertile). He gave an example that can be bred horses and donkeys (mules her son's name), but the crosses are barren and weak. It is said that his descendants who assert the truth of this barren system of classification of living creatures from Linneus.

Backcrossing have done a lot of scientists and usually occurs within the same genus. Such as horses and donkeys that have been called that, donkeys and zebra, or tiger by tiger; this hybrid creature a new kind of animal he is unique.

One thing that broke interbreeding between these species is the marriage between the dolphins and whales which are in addition to cross-species interbreed, but also across the genus while still in one family. In 1985 the Marine Sea Life Park, Hawaii found hybrid between a dolphin fish (atlantic Bottlenose doplhin, Tursiops truncatus) and with the kind of killer whales (Pseudoorca crassidens), named Kekaimalu a new kind of creature called Wholphin (may mean crossing 'whale' and 'dolphin'). This Keikamalu was inherited from both parents of different genus and was dinataranya. For example, his father (the dolphins) have as many as 44 teeth, and her mother has 88, while as many as 66 teeth Kekaimalu. The color of his skin color was a mixture of black mother and father are the gray (there is in the photo below). Previously there were various reports about the existence of Wholphin on the high seas, but as usual the new scientists believe after this Kekaimalu.

For scientists kekaimalu presence is clearly strange magic bin, especiallywhen associated with the classification system of living beings (which systemLineus it). Technically only a single individual species areindividuals can reduce fertility, but instead was born of Kekaimaludifferent parent species and genus and has been a motheroffspring gave birth three times married with dolphins. Kekaimalu existence may indicate that the current classification of Linneus had been repaired or even replaced.

 Kekaimalu (right) and his son

ANATOMY

Dolphins have a "fusiform" body— wide in the middle, tapered at the ends — adapted for fast swimming. The head contains the melon, a round organ used for echolocation. In many species, the jaws are elongate, forming a distinct beak and for some species like the Bottlenose, the curved mouth that looks like a fixed smile. Teeth can be very numerous in several species. The dolphin brain is large and has a highly structured cortex, which is often referred to in discussions about their high intelligence.

The basic coloration pattern are shades of gray with a light underside and a distinct dark cape on the back. Markings are often combined with lines and patches of different hue and contrast.

A) Dorsal Fin: The dorsal fin is falcate (curved back) and located at the center of the back. It is made up of fibrous tissue. It may act to stabilize the dolphin as it swims but it is not a necessity - as some dolphin’s dorsal fins are damaged with some almost completly missing.

B) Melon: The fatty, rounded structure on the top of the head used to produce sounds for communication and echolocation.

C) Rostrum: The snout of the dolphin containing conical shaped teeth. These interlock to catch prey whole and suck it down whole, without chewing it.

D) Pectoral Flippers: The pectoral flippers are the dolphin’s forelimbs. They are very similar to our forearms and hands. The flippers are curved and pointed on the ends and have a primary function of helping the dolphin to steer.

E) Postanal Hump: The hump is found only on mature males.

Blowhole: Dolphins breathe air, and must come up to the surface of the water regularly. They only have one nostril, located on the top of their headm called the blowhole. It is used by the dolphin to breathe, but they have no sense of smell!

Tail Fluke: A Dolphin's tail has two lobes called flukes. These flukes are flat, and made up of fibrous tissue. There is no bone or muscle. The tail fluke is used for swimming by the back muscles moving the fluke up and down.

Sharkbait and Sweeting playing with a bandana.

Identification of individual Atlantic Spotted Dolphin is central to any research and information gathering on this free-ranging species. It is essential when recording behaviors over a number of years to know who's who. This can prove difficult because the number of spots per dolphin increases with age, like a continually changing fingerprint.

Pregnant female named Sandy.

Spotted dolphins lead very complex social lives. They form smaller sub groups within the pod such as; Mothers with the same age calves, mixed sex juveniles and mature males. The group size ranges from 3 to 9 individuals and the overall pod size of about 50. They exhibit numerous social behaviors like companionship, affection, aggression and play. Regardless of the relationship when two dolphin are swimming together they will be in almost constant physical contact with each other.

SPOTTED DOLPHINS IN THE BAHAMAS

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin (Stenella frontalis) are considered a near-shore, non migrating species ranging the temperate and tropical coastal waters of the Atlantic. As the name suggests, they are commonly recognized by their spots that develop as they age. The population of spotted dolphin on the Little Bahama Bank is very fluid both in range and division into smaller groups, making a firm definition of a pod almost impossible. Spotted Dolphins range throughout the Bahamas with certain areas having resident pods, such as White Sand Ridge.

How fast can dolphins swim?

The average dolphin swims at a rate of between 10 and 15km per hour. If they are being chased, they are capable of swimming much faster, even as fast as 40km per hour.

Etymology

The name is originally from Greek δελφίς (delphís), "dolphin",^[1] which was related to the Greek δελφύς (delphus), "womb".^[2] The animal's name can therefore be interpreted as meaning "a 'fish' with a womb".^[3] The name was transmitted via the Latin delphinus^[4] (the romanizationof the later Greek δελφῖνος - delphinos^[5]), which in Middle Latin became dolfinus and in Old French daulphin, which reintroduced the ph into the word. The term mereswine has also historically been used.^[6]

The word is used in a few different ways. It can mean:

• Any member of the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins),
• Any member of the families Delphinidae and Platanistoidea (oceanic and river dolphins),
• Any member of the suborder Odontoceti (toothed whales; these include the above families and some others),
• Used casually as a synonym for Bottlenose Dolphin, the most common and familiar species of dolphin.

This article uses the second definition and does not describe Porpoises (suborder Odontoceti, family Phocoenidae). Orcas and some closely related species belong to the Delphinidae family and therefore qualify as dolphins, even though they are called whales in common language. A group of dolphins is called a "school" or a "pod". Male dolphins are called "bulls", females "cows" and young dolphins are called "calves".^[7]

Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in seventeen genera. They vary in size from 1.2 m (4 ft) and 40 kg (90 lb) (Maui's Dolphin), up to 9.5 m (30 ft) and 10 tonnes (9.8 LT; 11 ST) (the Orca or Killer Whale). They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating fish and squid. The family Delphinidae is the largest in the Cetacean order, and relatively recent: dolphins evolved about ten million years ago, during the Miocene. Dolphins are among the most intelligent animals and their often friendly appearance and seemingly playful attitude have made them popular in human culture.