curious dolphin fact and information

In my personal observations of the dolphins here at the Dolphin Bay, Bocas del Toro, I cannot attest to everything below but they are probably doing many things i will never get to witness.

Dolphin Fact #1 - Bottlenose dolphins often cooperate when hunting and catching fish

Dolphin Fact #2 - A dolphin’s pectoral flippers have all the skeletal elements of the hands and forearms of terrestrial mammals.

Dolphin Fact #3 - Dolphins have an acute sense of hearing. Studies show that the lower jaw most effectively receives sounds with frequencies above 20 kHz.

Dolphin Fact #4 - Dolphins respond to sharks with tolerance, avoidance, and aggression. Tiger sharks elicit the strongest responses from dolphins. Researchers have observed dolphins attacking, and sometimes killing, sharks in the wild.

Dolphin Fact #5 - Bottlenose dolphins identify themselves with a signature whistle. A mother dolphin may whistle to her baby dolphin (calf) almost continuously for several days after giving birth. This acoustic imprinting helps the baby dolphin learn to identify its mother.

Dolphin Fact #6 - Dolphins have to be conscious to breath. This means that dolphins cannot go into a full deep sleep, because then they would suffocate. Dolphins have dealt with that by letting one half of their brain sleep at a time.

Dolphin Fact #7 - Dolphins can produce high pitched clicks. When these clicks hit an object, some of the sound will echo back to the “sender”. By listening to the echo and interpreting the time it took before the echo came back, the dolphin estimates the distance of the object. If the object is a fish, some sound will reflect off the skin on the dolphin’s side, some of the bones, the internal organs and the skin on the other side. So one click can result in a number of (weaker) echoes. This will give the dolphin some information about the structure and size of the fish. By moving its head (thereby aiming the clicks at other parts of the fish) the dolphin can get more information on other parts of the fish.

Dolphin Fact #8 - Most of their water dolphin get from their food (fish and squid). Also, when dolphins metabolize (burn) their fat, water is released. Dolphin kidneys are also adapted to retaining as much water as possible. Although they live in water, dolphin live as desert animals, since they have no direct source of drinkable water.

Dolphin Fact #9 - The dolphin normally comes to the surface to breathe about every two minutes and each breath consists of a short, explosive exhalation, followed by a slightly longer inhalation. Dolphins can hold their breath for up to several minutes.

Dolphin Fact #10 - Dolphins were once hunted commercially for the small quantity of valuable oil extracted from parts of the head and used to lubricate delicate watch mechanisms.

Dolphin Fact #11 - Most researchers agree that dolphins exhibit a level of intelligence greater then that of dogs and even comparable to that of some primates–but not human beings.