Spotted dolphins, Photo: nationalgeographic.com
Dolphins are incredibly smart and very curious animals. Here are some interesting facts about dolphins:
- Dolphins are mammals, they share a common link with hoofed animals like cows, horses, deers etc.
- The name originally came from Greek word “delphus” which means “womb”. Therefore the animal’s name can be interpreted as meaning “a ‘fish’ with a womb”.
- A group of dolphins is called a “school” or a “pod”. Male dolphins are called “bulls”, females “cows” and young dolphins are called “calves”.
- Dolphins are highly social animals. As many as 12 dolphins can stay together in a pod.
- Most dolphins have excellent eyesight, both in and out of the water, and they can hear frequencies ten times or more above the upper limit of adult human hearing.
- It is believed that dolphins use the lower jaw for underwater hearing.
- The brain size of dolphins compared to their average body size is second in the animal kingdom only to humans.
- Bottlenose dolphins have been found to have signature whistles, a whistle that is unique to a specific individual. Here is how they sound:
- Dolphins have different techniques to catch fishes. One technique is very unique where a dolphin kicks the mud and make a muddy circular wall around the fishes, another dolphin signals the other dolphins to come and catch them.
Dolphins catching fishes, Photo: nationalgeographic.com
- A number of militaries have employed dolphins for various purposes from finding mines to rescuing lost or trapped humans.
Here is a video by Ted-Ed on dolphin intelligence:
Sources:
1. Wikipedia
2. YouTube
3. National Geographic