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Bottle-Nosed Dolphin

Physical Characteristics
 

  • It is named after its shaped beak

  • Has a round forehead and has a dark blue to gray coloration

  • It has a whitish belly with white on the tip of its snout

  • Small flippers with darkened edges

  • Has up to 52 teeth

  • Adults are around 1.75 to 3.6 m long and weigh 150-650 kg

    • Females are usually smaller than males

Habitat
 

  • Bottle-Nosed Dolphins live in coastal waters or off of oceanic islands

  • They can be found worldwide in tropics and subtropics

  • On the Pacific, they range from southern California to Chile and on the Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to Patagonia

  • They are found off of the Ballena and Santa Rosa National Park

Behavior
 

  • Uses high frequency sound pulses to locate objects underwater, this includes their pray

  • Can travel at 18km/hour in the water

  • There are two groups of these dolphins, ones near islands and ones near shore

  • Dolphins learned to follow human boats because they learned that there is fish in nets and waste is thrown overboard

  • They eat shrimp, fish, and squid

    • A bottle-nosed dolphin eats 6-7 kg of food a day

Other Facts
 

  • Considered to be the smartest animal on earth

  • Was heavily hunted during the 20th century

  • They are now protected

  • Commercial tuna fishing is a great threat to bottle-nosed dolphins

    • This is because dolphins get caught in the nets along with tuna

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