Pet Profile: Everything You Need To Know About Dolphins

This month’s pet profile focuses on one of the world’s smartest animals.

The summer season often makes for a great opportunity to travel around with your friends and family, taking in new sites while you are on vacation from work or school, and seeing different parts of the world that you may have never seen before. Whether you are spending your summer holiday at a local beach, a national lake or an ocean all the way across the country, one thing is for sure―there is no better place to spend your summer vacation than cooling off seaside.

However, while the water may be a great way to cool off under the hot summer sun and often provides for some great summer entertainment with a fun group of people, escaping to the ocean for the summer also offers a great opportunity to check out local wildlife and animal habitats.

One particular animal that is remarkably interesting and entertaining to watch, no matter what season it may be, is the dolphin. These well loved creatures are not only some of the most intelligent, gregarious animals found in nature, but they have also been known to help humans in a wide variety of situations, including dangerous rescues and during fishing expeditions.

Because dolphins are so unique and fascinating to many, you can only really begin to appreciate them once you learn what wonderful, remarkable creatures they are. To help you learn more about these Oceanside animals this summer, we have put together some basic pet profile facts about dolphins.

Habitat

Dolphins are aquatic animals that live, breed and spend most of their time in waters. In fact, most species of dolphin live in saltwater, but there are some that are able to do well in the freshwater locations as well. Because dolphins tent to stick to the shallow locations of water, due to their friendly nature and the availability of food, they are often spotted easily by humans.

Behavior

In addition to their well-known unique intelligence, dolphins are also wildly known for their agility and playful behavior. They are very entertaining due to their great leaps that they can make out of the water―sometimes as high as 30 feet―and they often synchronize their movements with one another. Dolphins are also very social, and live in large groups of five, all the way up to several hundred creatures to keep them company.

Diet

While dolphins may have over 100 intimidating teeth in their mouths, they do not use their teeth for eating. Instead, they use them to catch several kinds of fish (including mullet, mackerel and herring), and then they swallow them. Dolphins can consume up to thirty pounds of fish per day, and their diet often depends largely on the area in which they live and also on the season that they are feeding.

Do you know any other interesting facts about dolphins that we might have missed? Be sure to share them with us in the comments below. Also, stay tuned for our next Pet Profile article coming in August!

Image: Source