Bottlenose Dolphin
| Bottlenose Dolphin | ||||||||||||||
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| Tursiops truncatus |
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| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
| Tursiops truncatus |
The Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is the most common and well known dolphin species. They inhabit warm and temperate seas worldwide and may be found in all but the Arctic and the Antarctic Oceans.
| Table of contents |
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2 Subdivision 3 Conservation 4 Bottlenoses in human culture |
Description
Bottlenose Dolphins are grey; dark at the top near the dorsal fin, very light and almost white at the underside. This way, they are hard to see both from above and below when swimming. The elongated upper and lower jaws give the animals their name; the nose however is located elsewhere: it's the blowhole on top of the head. Their face shows a characteristic "smile". Adults range in length from 2 to 4 meters and in weight from 150 to 650 kilograms, with males being slightly longer and considerably heavier than females on average.
The flukes (lobes of the tail) and dorsal fin are formed of dense connective tissue and don't contain bones or muscle. The animal propels forward by moving the flukes up and down. The pectoral flippers (at the sides of the body) serve for steering; they contain bones clearly homologous to the forelimbs of land mammals (from which dolphins and all other whales evolved some 50 million years ago).
Bottlenose Dolphins normally live in groups called pods, containing up to 12 animals. These are long-term social units. Typically, a group of females and their young live together in a pod, and juveniles in a mixed pod. Several of these pods can join together to form larger groups of one hundred dolphins or more. Males live mostly alone or in groups of 2-3 and join the pods for short periods of time.
Bottlenose Dolphins typically swim at a speed of 5-11 kilometers per