Bottlenose Dolphin And Their Scientific Name

Bottlenose dolphins are also known as Tursiops truncates, which is their scientific name. This name originated from the Latin word “tursio” which means “dolphin”, and the Greek suffix “ops” which means “appearance”. In effect, tursiops means “dolphin-like” and their scientific name was derived from these other languages. Bottlenose dolphins are generally 6.6 to 12.8 feet long and weighing around 332 to 442 pounds. The variations in size are because of geographical location and gender. The coastal dolphins tend to be smaller than the offshore ones. Also, the males tend to be larger than the females.
Bottlenose dolphins have a fusiform shape with a streamlined body. Their skin feels rubbery, but smooth, and they range from a light grey color to a black color. Their bottom side is a grey-pink color. The color of their skin can sometimes provide camouflage to their predators. Bottlenose dolphins have a thick epidermis, and under that there is a layer of blubber with fibrous connective tissue.
Their body parts include pectoral
flippers, flukes, a dorsal fin, and a head. The pectoral flippers are their version of forelimbs, and they are shaped with a curve and pointed tip. The pectoral flippers help the dolphin steer and stop. Bottlenose dolphins’ flukes are the two lobes on their tail that make up approximately 20% of their total body length. The flukes consist of dense fibrous tissue and no cartilage or bone or muscle. The dorsal fin is made of the same fibrous tissue as the flukes, and it has a curved shape. Dorsal fins are not necessary for the dolphins to have, but they can assist with balancing. The dolphin’s head has two parts: the “melon”, which is the rounded part, and the “rostrum”, which is the snout-like part. Located on the melon part of the head are the eyes, which can move independently of each other, and the blowhole for breathing. Located on the rostrum are their 72-104 teeth because they are classified as toothed whales.
Although bottlenose dolphins have many teeth, they are not used when feeding as they swallow their prey whole. An average adult bottlenose dolphin eats about 15-30 pounds per day. Their diet consists mostly of fish, sometimes in schools, but depends on their geographical location. The coastal dolphins feed on primarily fish and bottom-dwelling sea creatures, where as the offshore dolphins feed on mainly fish and squid. In order to reach the squid and other prey, the offshore dolphins can dive up to about 1600 feet deep.
Bottlenose dolphins are very skilled in catching their prey, whether individually or in a group, they have multiple methods. Individually, they can swim fish into mud banks or shallow shorelines to trap them and then eat them. They can also flip a fish out of the water with their tail flukes to stun them and then eat them. Also, they can just feed on a single fish, which is an example of individual prey capture. In groups, they can coordinate efforts to catch prey, like swimming around a school of fish and making them one dense cluster surrounded by dolphins. The dolphins then alternate swimming through and feeding on them.
Bottlenose dolphins live in tropical and temperate waters that range from 50° to 90° Fahrenheit. They are spread out all over the world, which is why their worldwide population is unknown. They live in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans. Population has been recorded and estimated for bottlenose dolphins in certain areas such as the U.S. west coast: 5,065, Gulf of Mexico: 45,000, and Eastern Tropical Pacific: 243,500. The coastal dolphins are adapted to live in warmer waters and with a denser population of dolphins, where as the offshore dolphins live in cooler, deeper waters. Coastal dolphins often swim into bays, lagoons, and estuaries in search of prey. Migration occurs more among offshore bottlenose dolphins due to drastic changes in water temperature, as well as for better feeding opportunities elsewhere. Migration in coastal bottlenose dolphins is more localized.
Bottlenose dolphins often live in social groups of 2-15 individuals, and the group’s composition may change, or groups can combine to create larger groups.
Family relations build many groups, and some are even multigenerational, and mothers tend to stay with their child for 3-6 years. Some within the group can develop strong bonds with each other. The dolphins attempt to establish and show dominance within their group by chasing, biting, scratching, and tail-smacking each other. Often, males provide protection for their group against predators. Bottlenose dolphins often will help out any injured dolphins in their group. For example, they might hold up an injured dolphin at the surface so that he or she can still breathe. Another behavior they perform is called “scouting”, and it is where a dolphin investigates unknown territory or objects and “reports back” to their group about their findings. Also, they most likely have daily cycles of
activity.
Their conservation status is “special concern” since the bottlenose dolphins are not considered endangered or threatened. Bottlenose dolphins are protected in U.S. waters under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which defines it as illegal “to harass, hunt, capture, or kill” (16 U.S.C. 1362). Also, they are safe under the U.S. Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act (DPCIA), which was passed in 1990 and it helped implement “Dolphin Safe” fishing. This was because dolphins were getting caught in and killed by fishing nets by accident. After this act was passed, incidental dolphin mortality rates went significantly down in U.S. waters.
Although some humans are trying to help out and protect these dolphins and other marine mammals, some humans do not help them at all. From human impact, dolphins have to face marine pollution, climate change, being “by-catches” in fishing, boat collisions, offshore development, sonar by the Navy, and humans feeding them food they can’t eat. One of the worst negative human impacts dolphins had to face was when people from Japan killed dolphins and other toothed whales for ten years (1976-1986), otherwise known as the “Iki Island Kills”. They killed them on purpose because they wanted the dolphins to produce items such as meat, oil, and leather. Although that specific large killing in Japan ended in 1986, intentional dolphin kills still occur by people from places including Japan, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Peru.