Dolphins and humans have very much in common. For instance, we are both warm blooded, and we are both mammals.
Dolphins use their strong, powerful tail flukes to move around in the water. They also use their tails when they hunt. They hit a fish up into the air with their tail, stunning it, and then scoop the fish up when it falls back into the water.
When a dolphin slaps its tail on the waters surface, it can mean two different things, one means annoyance, and the other is a warning of danger.
Dolphins use their flippers for many different things. One way they use their flippers is to steer. Another way they use them is when one dolphin strokes another dolphin, causing a special bond between them. Dolphin friends may swim along side by side, with their flippers touching. Dolphins that are closely bonded may swim in synchrony, twisting, and turning in harmony.
Dolphins breath through something called a blowhole. The blowhole is located at the top of the head. Dolphins can empty and refill its blowhole in less than a fifth of a second. Water in a dolphins blowhole will drown the dolphin, so its powerful muscles close the blowhole as it dives underwater again.
When a Dolphin sleeps, it can only shut down half of its brain, because it has to keep breathing. When dolphins take catnaps, they sleep just below the surface, and rise slowly to breath.
For many people who love to see dolphins, they can only see them at an aquarium. In the past, many dolphins were captured very violently, being taken from their home in the wild.
Dolphins were taken away from their families, and were forced to live in small barren tanks. Worldwide, 2,700 dolphins have been taken into captivity. Statistics say that 53% of the captive dolphins, who survived the violent capture died within 90 days. The half that managed to stay alive longer than 90 days, died within the first two years of captivity. The average age of dolphins that lived longer that two years, was five years. The dolphins in captivity used to die from capture shock, pneumonia, intestinal disease, ulcers, chlorine poisoning, and other stress related illnesses.
Thankfully, a number of countries have stopped, or reduced the capture of dolphins. There are still many countries that capture wild dolphins. They haul dolphins and sea lions around for road shows. Now, some dolphins that have been captured, don't live in cement tanks, but in the ocean again.