dolphin
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dolphin
, fishdolphin
, aquatic mammalCharacteristics and Species
Dolphins are fishlike in form, with streamlined, hairless bodies. Their powerful, horizontal flukes, or tail fins, drive them through or out of the water, while their forefins and dorsal fin are used for steering. Constantly shedding their skins, dolphins accumulate no barnacles or other external parasites. A layer of blubber protects them from cold and seals small wounds. Dolphins breathe air through a single, dorsal blowhole.
The dolphin's intelligence, playfulness, and friendliness, its built-in smile and merry-looking eyes have been a source of interest and enchantment to human beings from earliest times; it is a common figure in mythology and literature and has been much depicted in art, especially in the posture of its graceful, arched, 30-ft (9-m) leap. Dolphins have long been famous for riding the bows of ships, and it is now known that they also ride the bows of large whales. Today they are valued and exploited as entertainers in more than 40 water shows around the world and have thus become available for extensive study.
The best known species are the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), of worldwide distribution, and the bottle-nosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), found in coastal waters of the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The bottlenose has been particularly intensively studied; it is presumed that much of what is known about this species applies to other dolphins and even to the large whales.
Common Dolphin
Bottle-nosed Dolphin
The bottle-nosed dolphin is blue-gray with a dorsal fin and white belly. Its average length is 9 ft (2.7 m) and its average weight 350 lb (160 kg). Its domed forehead, called the melon, contains an oily substance thought to protect the brain case and to act as an acoustic lens. With age the 200 or more teeth of the bottlenose wear down, hence the name truncatus. Members of this species live about 25 years. Bottle-nosed dolphins swim in large schools with a social organization and hierarchy, hunting the small fish, crustaceans, squid, and cuttlefish that make up their diet. They have been clocked swimming at 30 mi (48 km) per hour, although 20 to 24 mi (32–39 km) per hour is their usual speed. They can dive 70 ft (20 m) and remain underwater for 15 minutes. They sleep by night, just below the surface of the water, rising for air every three or four minutes.
Their aquatic natural enemies are sharks and killer whales; these they attempt to outswim, using complex evasive strategy, or batter to death, acting in a group. If one of their number is injured or sick they make every effort to rescue it, holding it above the water for air. Play behavior is highly developed in the bottlenose from infancy through old age, and in this connection it displays considerable tool-making, tool-using, and manipulative ability; for example, a dolphin has been observed to kill a fish, strip its skeleton, and use the bones, held in the mouth, to pry another fish out of a crevice. Sex play is frequent and is initiated by any individual toward any other, without regard to size, age, sex, relationship, or even species; approaches to human beings and to turtles are common.
Courtship and impregnation occur mainly in spring, when males vie for the attention of the females. A single calf, 31-2 ft (97 cm) long and weighing 30 lb (14 kg), is born tail first after a gestation of 12 months. The mother or a female assistant bites the umbilical cord in two and pushes the calf to the surface to breathe; it is nursed for one to two years. One female may watch over several calves while the mothers hunt, or during battle.
The senses of the bottlenose have been subjected to intensive investigation, as have their intelligence and their remarkable systems of echolocation and communication. In relation to body size, the brain of the adult bottlenose is comparable in size to that of humans; it is twice as convoluted and possesses 11-2 times as many cells. The bottlenose has partially stereoscopic vision that is keen both in water and in air; when the animal leaps from one medium to the other, its brain corrects for the difference in refractive index. The eye has a glowing layer for night vision and a brownish filter that is lowered over the iris in bright sunlight. The brain has no olfactory lobe and the sense of smell is presumably missing, but the taste buds are well developed and are used to detect underwater chemical traces, as when the dolphin tracks fish.
Echolocation and Communication
Interaction with Humans
Dolphins are capable of imitation and memorization; they demonstrate foresight, learn from observation, communicate experience, solve complex problems, perform elaborate tasks, and learn multiple procedures simultaneously. Their so-called training is in fact a discipline structured around play, using their natural behavior as the basis for involved maneuvers; they appear to perform primarily for their own enjoyment. In situations of great stress in captivity they have been known to commit suicide by starvation, battering against walls, or drowning. There are many reports of dolphins rescuing people from drowning.
The United States and Russian/Soviet navies have spent vast sums to reach a greater understanding of dolphin echolocation, which could have countless military applications. The U.S. navy has trained dolphins to act as messengers to underwater stations, to rescue wounded scuba divers and protect them from sharks, to locate and mark underwater mines, and to seek and destroy submarines, using kamikaze methods; this last project met with considerable public criticism.
Classification
Bibliography
See W. N. Kellogg, Porpoises and Sonar (1961); K. S. Norris, ed., Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises (1966); E. Devine and M. Clark, The Dolphin Smile (1967); R. Stenuit, The Dolphin, Cousin to Man (1968); D. K. and M. C. Caldwell, The World of the Bottlenosed Dolphin (1972); M. M. Bryden and R. Harrison, ed., Research on Dolphins (1986); R. Ellis, Dolphins and Porpoises (1989); H. Whitehead and L. Rendell, The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins (2014).
Dolphin
(religion, spiritualism, and occult)The dolphin is a traditional alternate name for the sign Pisces.
Dolphin
freestanding supports that take up the loads when vessels dock and fall foul. There are mooring dolphins, breasting dolphins, swinging dolphins, and guiding types. They may be rigid, with a slight lateral yield, or flexible. The dolphins are installed directly in front of berths that are not designed to withstand horizontal loads and in front of sloping structures to prevent vessels from falling foul of the shore. They are also placed in roadsteads for the benefit of vessels unloading or waiting to unload. Dolphins placed at approaches to berths or at the entrance to a lock or harbor help vessels to hold the correct position, and dolphins of the floating type serve to hold vessels off from mooring structures.
REFERENCES
Goriunov, B. F., and F. M. Shikhiev. Morskie porty i portovye sooruzheniia. Moscow, 1970.Mikhailov, A. V. Vnutrennie vodnye puti. Moscow, 1973.
What does it mean when you dream about a dolphin? (porpoise)
Large bodies of water often symbolize the unconscious, so any sea creature can represent a message from the unconscious or diving into the unconscious. As seagoing mammals, dolphins can symbolize the connection or interaction between our conscious (air) and unconscious (water) selves, or between thoughts (air) and emotions (water). They also represent guides to the unconscious. Because of our society’s general knowledge about dolphin behavior, they also symbolize rescuers.