Bottlenose Dolphins are

AmazingBy Sarah Winter

Scientific Clarifications

Classification:Kingdom AnimaliaPhylum Chordata

Class Mammalia Order Cetacea

Family Delpinidae Genus Tursiops

Species TurncatusScientific name: Tursiops Turncatus

Dolphins in General

Closely related to: whales and porpoises

Height: 3.5 meters long

Weight: 250-650 kilograms in a lifetime

Special names: baby- calves

female- cows

male- bulls

group- pods

Dolphins’ Body

Color: grey to dark grey on its back, fading to white on its belly.

Symmetry: Dolphins have only one line of symmetry; right down the spine splitting

the dorsal fin in half, vertically.

Shape: looks like an air plane with an extra fin on top.

Skin: soft texture and is super smooth.

Dolphins’ Body PartsBody Parts: Pectoral flippers are the forelimbs of Bottlenose Dolphins. They use this part of

the body to steer and to stop using flukes. They also stoke one another with the pectoral flippers, increasing social bond.

Flukes are used to move in the water. Dolphins propel themselves by the up and down moments of the flukes. Flukes do not contain bones, it is made up of fibrous connective tissue.

Dorsal fins also have no bones like Flukes. At the time of swimming it help Dolphins to stabilize.

They also use their tails to hunt, hitting the fish in order to catch and swallow it.

The eyes and ears are located at the sides of the head. Because the ears are the inner parts, they are hardly seen on the surface of the body. But the dimples seen near eyes can show you its inner ears.

SurvivalPredators: most of the predators are large sharks; usually great white,

bull, dusky, and tiger sharks. Some say killer whales are predators although this has never been observed. But the most dangerous

killer of all are humans; they are always being accidentally caught in fishing nets.

Defense: Dolphins defend themselves by battering their snouts into the sharks soft underbelly. This can result to killing the shark.

Movement: Bottlenose Dolphins move by swimming, and when they want to perform, they jump. They swim both fast and slow, much

like how humans get around on foot. When they want to show off by jumping out of the water and back in forming half a circle, they swim fast, when they want to relax in the water and just take a swim, they

go slow. When dolphins are being chased by a predator, they obviously swim fast, this is why their speed is so important.

Diet

Prey: Dolphins are carnivores eating up to 20 pounds of food each day, mostly small fish, crabs, squid and

sometimes crustaceans.

Capturing food: One way Dolphins get their food is by whacking the fish with their tail, they call this fish

whacking.

Food Chain: Bottlenose Dolphins are about in the middle of the food chain

Way of eating: Bottlenose Dolphins eat eat food just like humans; by chewing the food with their teeth.

Reproduction

Dolphin Love: Mating Dolphins- like most mammals, Bottlenose Dolphins give live birth to their young, and nurse them with mammary glands, though it sounds odd to imagine nursing underwater. But the birth of a dolphin starts long before his babyhood; it starts with how Mom and Dad first met.

Most of what is known from recent research about dolphin reproduction was observed in captivity, which some might agree is not necessarily normal behavior. But what has been determined is that dolphins are most likely to mate during the spring, with male-female courtship ritual which is like dolphin dating. When a male dolphin is interested in a female he will nudge her from behind with his sex organs for several minutes, and then mounts her. After this dolphin mating is roughly as ordinary as any other mammalian mating. Dolphins are among the most sexual of animals, and they have more than one partner. When aroused, a dolphin male may mate several times an hour, often with the same female but not always. But even though the male may play and then swim away, female dolphins can usually depend on their pods to help protect the baby dolphin. Bottlenose Dolphins usually only give birth to one calf at a time there have been situations found where multiples are produced. They will then give birth to this calf 10-12 months later. And because dolphins are mammals they do not reproduce asexually.

Behavior

Traveling: Bottlenose Dolphins travel in groups called pods. They do not migrate in the fall to prepare for the winter, but they

do move seasonally.

Nocturnalation: Dolphins mostly search in the day but when fish start to migrate they

become nocturnal.

Habitat and Home

Biome: Bottlenose Dolphins live in warm watered oceans all around the world. They live as far north as Japan and Norway and

as far south as Argentina and New Zealand. They also live near the southern

tip of Africa too.

Works Cited

2009-WikiAnswers.com, http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_common_dolphin_protect_itself

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_dolphins_defend_themselves

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_animal_kingdom_is_the_bottle-nose_dolphin_a_part_of

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_Bottlenose_dolphins_preditors

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_biome_do_dolphins_live_in

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_dolphins_skin_like

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_scientific_name_for_bottle_nosed_dolphin

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_type_of_climate_do_bottle_nose_dolphins_live_in

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_are_dolphins_on_the_food_chain

Works Cited continued

2009-Dolphinkind.com, http://www.dolphinkind.com/dolhin_facts.html

(unknown)-Dolphins-world.com, http://www.dolphins-world.com/Dolphin_Reproduction.html

http://www.dolphins-world.com/what_are_the_common_dolphins_predators.html

http://www.dolphins-world.com/where_do_bottlenose_dolphins_go_in_the_summer

1999-eHow.com, http://www.ehow.com/about_458814_do-dolphins-migrate-hibrate.html

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