70 Amazing and Awesome Facts about Dolphin | Amazing Facts 4U
- Dolphins belong to mammals and kids are nursed with mother’s milk.
- Dolphins are cetaceans that have been further classified into two suborders, marine, and River Dolphins.
- There are 41 species of Dolphins being 36 oceanic and 5 freshwater Dolphins. The most common Dolphin is the Bottlenose Dolphin.
- Dolphins once lived on land and looked and behaved something like a small wolf but with five hoof-like toes on each foot instead of claws.
- Some dolphins still have hair on their heads and the Amazon River dolphin has hair on its beak. Dolphins also have remnant finger bones in their flippers, a forearm, wrists, and a few remnant leg bones deep inside their bodies. They have been called “re-entrants”.
- Killing a dolphin in ancient Greece was considered sacrilegious and was punishable by death.
- Dolphins are very intelligent animals and very friendly fascinating humans for centuries.
- While the brains of most mammals have a relatively smooth surface, the brains of humans are extremely convoluted. Scientists often measure intelligence by the number of brain “folds.” The dolphin brain is even more “folded” than humans and has been this way for millions of years.
- Some dolphins can understand as many as 60 words, which can make up 2000 sentences.
- Dolphins are capable to engage in complex activities and playing and even solving problems creatively.
- The distinction between dolphins and porpoises is often blurred, but generally, porpoises have spade-shaped teeth and bluntly rounded faces. Dolphins have teeth shaped like rounded cones set in jaws that extend in a snout or beak.
- Dolphins also “see” with sounds. They emit a series of clicks and pings that travel long distances through water. When the sound hits an object, echoes are bounced back to the dolphin, enabling it to literally hear the distance, shape, density, movement, and texture of an object.
- With their “echo-location,” dolphins can distinguish between types of fish the same size, between aluminum and brass, and between a steel ball that is 2½ in diameter and one that is 2¼ in diameter.
- A dolphin’s “sonar” or echo-location is rare in nature and is far superior to either the bat’s sonar or human-made sonar.
- Dolphin sonar seems not to detect the fine threads of fishing nets, and millions of dolphins have drowned as a result of becoming entangled.
- A dolphin can produce whistles for communication and clicks for sonar at the same time, which would be like a human speaking in two voices, with two different pitches, holding two different conversations.
- Amazingly dolphins don’t have a sense of smell, but they do have a sense of taste and, like humans, can distinguish between sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes.
- Dolphins are social creatures living in pods of 10 to 12 individuals that have formed a group for protection and feeding.
- Within the pod, Dolphins protect each other, reproduce and take care of their babies. Pods are also very important for their feeding.
- It has even been proved that Dolphins have cultural behavior within the pods as they transmit learned skills from mothers to younger Dolphins.
- To hunt, Dolphins use several techniques the most common is herding, where a pod of Dolphins surrounds a school of fish to keep them as tight as possible, and then Dolphins take turns to dive through the compacted pod, feeding themselves.
- Dolphins breathe through a blowhole located at the top of their bodies which takes the air directly to their lungs.
- Amazingly Dolphins don’t automatically breathe. They have to tell themselves to breathe.
- The fact is only one half of a Dolphin’s brain sleeps at a time. The other half that’s awake signals the Dolphin to come up for air to prevent drowning
- The amazing fact is that Dolphins can swim and sleep at the same time.
- Amazingly Dolphins always sleep with one eye open! Dolphins also must sleep at the surface of the water with their blowholes exposed.
- As dolphins do not breathe automatically as humans do, they will die if given a general anesthetic.
- Spinner dolphins amazingly sleep in pairs, one with the left hemisphere asleep, the other with the right. Both keep watch with one eye and half a brain. They are known to sleep-mate for life.
- Dolphin teeth are used for grasping, not chewing. They have no jaw muscles for chewing.
- The amazing fact is that dolphins can commit suicide by voluntarily ceasing to breathe as they are not “automatic breathers”. Cases of captive Dolphins doing the same have been reported.
- Dolphins eat fish like mackerel, herring, cod, or squid.
- Dolphins communicate in several forms through whistles, clicks, and sounds.
- Water-based mammals like Dolphins and whales swish their tails up and down while fish move them sideways. In fact, a dolphin carries more oxygen in its blood than a fish and can swim longer than a fish. Thus dolphins are better adapted to the sea than are any fish.
- The amazing fact is that Dolphins can kill sharks by ramming them with their snout.
- Dolphins can rapidly heal from extreme injuries, such as shark bites, and regenerate their original body shape.
- Dolphins can amazingly jump up to 20 feet above the water.
- Dolphin’s gestation period ranges from 11 to 17 months as per species.
- The amazing fact is that calves are delivered with the help of another Dolphin in the pod which takes the role of a midwife. Other dolphins, including bulls, will swim around the mother during birth to protect her.
- A baby dolphin is born tail-first to prevent drowning. After the mother breaks the umbilical cord by swiftly swimming away, she must immediately return to her baby and take it to the surface to breathe.
- A baby dolphin must learn to hold its breath while nursing.
- As mammals, calves are nursed with milk for up to 18 months, but they stay with their mothers for up to 6 years learning to hunt and survive.
- A dolphin eats approximately 1/8th of its body weight daily.
- It has been found that Dolphins name themselves when they are young and keep the same name throughout their lives. Other Dolphins recognize the name even if it’s not spoken by the Dolphin whose name it is.
- The Dolphin can live to be 50 years old.
- Dolphins have very few natural enemies, only a few species of large sharks are a potential threat for Dolphins, especially for calves. Dolphin’s biggest threat is from humans.
- Spinner Dolphins are famous for acrobatic displays in which they spin along their longitudinal axis as they leap through the air.
- It is amazing that killer whale is not species of the whale but the largest species of dolphin. True whales don’t have teeth but sift their prey through plates of baleen.
- The narwhal dolphin has a large ivory tusk (like a unicorn) which is often poached. The only remaining populations are in the Greenland Sea and the Baffin Bay.
- Amazingly Dolphins don’t drink water because seawater makes them sick and may possibly kill them. They get their water needs through the foods that they eat.
- Amazingly just a tablespoon of water in a dolphin’s lung could drown it. In contrast, a human could drown if two tablespoons of water were inhaled into the lungs.
- The blowhole is an evolved nose that has moved upward to the top of the dolphin’s head. Air can be expelled from a dolphin’s blowhole at speeds topping 100 mph.
- A dolphin’s body has adapted to avoid the bends (the formation of air bubbles in blood and tissue as a diver returns to the surface) by completely collapsing its ribcage, forcing the air under pressure out of its lungs and into the windpipe and the complex air chambers that lie below the blowhole.
- The eyes of a dolphin produce “dolphin tears,” a slippery secretion that protects the eye against foreign objects and infection and reduces friction between the surface of the eye and surrounding seawater. Marine dolphins see quite well both below and above the water.
- The fact is humans and Dolphins are the only species that copulate for pleasure.
- Amazingly male Dolphins are known to separate female Dolphins from their families and deny them food until they agree to mate.
- Dolphins are known to go on killing sprees when they sexually frustrated.
- 36 armed Dolphins trained by the U.S. Navy to kill terrorists have been missing since 2005. They carried “toxic dart guns” capable of killing a man in a single shot.
- In 2006, the world’s tallest man, Bao Xishun, used his incredibly long arms (1.06m) to remove plastic from the stomachs of two Dolphins which saved their lives after other attempts failed.
- Amazingly Dolphins can identify humans underwater by checking our skeletal structure through their sonar. They are known to often help shipwreck victims fight sharks and stay afloat.
- A Dolphin named Pelorus Jack used to guide ships in New Zealand through the difficult waters of Cook Strait until his disappearance in 1912.
- Pelorus Jack was even protected under the Sea Fisheries Act of 1904 after someone tried to shoot it. Pelorus Jack was the first individual sea creature protected by law in any country.
- In Laguna, Brazil, bottlenose Dolphins actively herd fish towards local fishermen and then signal with tail slaps for the fishermen to throw their nets. The Dolphins get to feed on the escaping fish. The amazing fact is that this collaboration between the Dolphins and the fishermen has been going on since at least 1847 without any training.
- In 2013, scientists found that a lonely, deformed Dolphin was adopted by a family of sperm whales.
- There have been several recorded instances where whales play around and give rides to Dolphins on their back.
- Wholphins are a crossbreed between a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale, which has the mean amount of teeth of both the parents (Dolphin: 88, false Killer whale: 44, Wholphin: 66)
- Amazingly there is an organization called Anti-Dolphin Organization, whose members fear that Dolphins are a threat to the human race and should be eliminated.
- India recognizes Dolphins as non-human persons and is one of four countries to ban the import/export of Dolphins, whales, and porpoises for commercial use.
- A species of Dolphin is born naturally blind in the Indus and Ganges rivers of South Asia but they have a highly sophisticated sonar system and swim on only one side of their body.
- There is a pink albino Dolphin in Lake Calcasieu, Louisiana USA.
- Maui’s Dolphin is the world’s rarest and smallest known subspecies of Dolphin being a subspecies of Hector’s Dolphin. They are only found off the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island. There are only 55 left. Save 55 campaign has been started.
Visit and subscribe to our blog! Get enriching & uplifting quotes right in your inbox: www.wisdomlifequotes.com
