Dolphins are mammals. They give birth to live young, nurse their young from mammary glands, have sharp teeth, beaklike snout, a sickle-shaped dorsal fin, a four-chamebered heart, are warm-blooded and have some hair but very little. They have lungs and breath air through the blowhole located near the top of their head.
Dolphins are members of the cetaceans group of mammals; which includes all whales and dolphins. The cetacean order divides into two suborders. The type of teeth is used to determine which suborder the whale is; whales with teeth and whales with baleen.
Dolphins have sharp teeth.
Whale Songs-learn more about cetaceans at a website by a teacher.
(whales, dolphins, and porpoises)
Dolphins breathe air at the surface of the water through a blowhole located near the top of the head. How often they need to breath and how long they can hold their breath depends on the species.
The common Dolphin can hold their breath up 15 minutes or more, although they usually stay only a few minutes diving. The bottle nosed dolphins need to breath every 2 minutes.
When dolphins come to the water’s surface to breathe, they make a short, explosive exhalation, then take a longer inhalation before submerging again. Water in a dolphins blowhole will drown the dolphin, a muscular plug closes the blowhole to keep water out of the dolphins lungs when they dive.
Dolphins live all over the world, from cold northern waters and warm southern waters. Bottlenose dolphins prefer warm waters.
Dolphins internal temperature is 98 degrees fahrenheit (36 degrees celsius). To conserve their body heat in cold water the dolphin has a think layer of fat called "blubber" just below the skin.
Dolphins live in groups called pods. The male dolphin is called a bull. The female dolphin is called a cow. A baby dolphin is called a calf.
A dolphin can use sound, vision, touch, and taste. A dolphin has very little sense of smell. A dolpin can make a unique signature whistle that may help individual dolphins recognize each other.
A dolphin will eat mainly fish or squid depending what part of the ocean they are in. Dolphins use their sense of sight, hearing, and echolocate to find the fish and squid they need to survive.
Echolacation is a way to use sound to locate objects in the environment. Bats use it in the air and dolphins use it in the water. A dolphin produces frequencies with a clicking sound. It is believed that the dolphin can hear the returning echo by feeling the sound pulses. Different objects give off different echoes.
Watch the dolphins at SeaWorld Orlandos Dolphin Cove.
The body shape of a dolphin helps it to be a fast swimmer. They are usually black, brown, or gray in color and are often marked with patterns of white or light colors.
The deepest dive ever recorded for a bottlenose dolphin was a 990 feet (300 meters). It is most likely that many bottlenose dolphins do not dive very deep as many live in fairly shallow water. Dolphins can jump up to 15 to 30 feet above the water .
Dolpins sleep with one eye open. They let one half of their brain sleep at a time. This allows them to watch for danger. It also makes it possible for the dolphin to surface to get breath, which they couldn't do if they were all the way asleep.
Some of the differences between dolphins and porpoises.
Porpoises are smaller, they seldom exceed 7 feet in length. Whereas, dolphins can exceed 10 feet in length. Porpoises have rounder heads than dolphins. A dolphin usually will have a large forehead. Porpoises are beak-less, whereas dolphins will have a beak.
