Interesting facts about dolphins - Dolphins Facts

1. When humans take a breath, they replace only 15% of the air in their lungs with fresh air. When dolphins breathe, they fill their lungs with fresh air, replacing 90% of the air they already have.

2. Scientists believe that dolphins do not ever fall into a deep sleep; therefore, they probably do not dream.

3. Called re-entrants, dolphins once lived on land and looked and behaved something like a small wolf but with five hoof-like toes on each foot instead claws. Dolphins also have remnant finger bones in their flippers, a forearm, wrists, and a few remnant leg bones deep inside their bodies.

• Facts That Are Absolutely Mind Boggling

4. Dolphins can recognize themselves in the mirror, and they love to admire themselves.

5. In Rome, dolphins were thought to carry souls to the “Islands of the Blest,” and images of dolphins have been found in the hands of Roman mummies, presumably to ensure their safe passage to the afterlife.

6. A two-headed dolphin was found in western Turkey in 2014.

7. Dolphins are classified as toothed whales alongside porpoises and orcas.

8. The narwhal dolphin has a large ivory tusk which is often poached. The only remaining populations are in the Greenland Sea and Baffin Bay.

9. Among all animals, dolphins possess the longest memory.

10. In addition to digging, dolphins will occasionally use their penis to snag and tow nets.

11. Just one-half of a dolphin’s brain goes to sleep at a time, because they are not automatic breathers. If both halves slept at the same time, the dolphin would drown.

12. Dolphins can talk and understand each other over the phone.

13. Dolphins can use echolocation and clicks to describe or show another dolphin an object it has seen.

14. Some dolphins can understand as many as 60 words, which can make up 2,000 sentences. They also show signs of self-awareness.

15. Just a tablespoon of water in a dolphin’s lung could drown it. Two teaspoons of water inhaled into the lungs is enough to cause drowning in a human.

16. The brain of a dolphin is much more "folded" than that of a human, and it was this way for millions of years before humans even existed. Number of brain "folds" is a common metric for scientists to use when assessing intelligence.

17. A baby dolphin is born tail-first to prevent drowning. After the mother breaks the umbilical cord by swiftly swimming away, she must immediately return to her baby and take it to the surface to breathe.

18. A female dolphin will assist in the birth of another’s baby dolphin, and if it is a difficult birth, the “midwife” might help pull out the baby. Other dolphins, including bulls, will swim around the mother during birth to protect her.

19. With echolocation, dolphins can distinguish between a steel ball that is 2½ inches in diameter and one that is 2¼ inches in diameter.

20. A baby dolphin must learn to hold its breath while nursing.

21. Blocking off a dolphin’s ears with suction cups hardly affects its hearing, yet if its lower jaw is covered with a rubber jacket, a dolphin will have trouble hearing. Because of this, researchers think it could use its lower jawbone or maybe its whole body to transmit sound waves from the water to its inner ear.

22. A dolphin can produce whistles for communication and clicks for sonar at the same time, which would be like a human speaking in two voices, with two different pitches, holding two different conversations.

23. A dolphin can make about 700 clicking sounds per second. The clicking sounds originate from under the blowhole, which is located deep inside the dolphin's skull. Scientists call this area the “monkey lips.”

24. The bulging part of a dolphin’s head contains an organ called the melon, which is filled with liquid fat. In its role as a lens, it concentrates the clicks made by the dolphin into a focused beam of sound.

25. Dolphins get water from the foods they eat, so they do not drink. The same thing happens to them when they consume salt water as it does to people: they get extremely dry and eventually die from dehydration.

26. Giraffes, humans, and dolphins all have seven vertebrae in their neck. Dolphins who live in saltwater environments are able to swim at great speeds like a torpedo because the vertebrae in their necks have fused together. River dolphins must be able to twist around river bends, so their vertebrae are not fused.

27. The blowhole is an evolved nose that has moved upward to the top of the dolphin’s head.

28.Every year, a dolphin’s teeth grow a new layer, similar to the rings inside a tree trunk. The number of tooth layers helps scientists to estimate a dolphin's age.

29. Dolphins can move each eye independently. With the ability to move each eye in four directions—up, down, forward, and backward—they have vision that is nearly 360 degrees.

30. Dolphins have hair at one point in their life cycle. Dolphins in the womb have a line of tiny hairs around their upper and lower lips, which typically fall out before birth. No mustaches have ever been discovered on a dolphin.

31. Unlike most wild animals, dolphins spend a lot of time enjoying sex and foreplay that is not determined by the urge to procreate or being “in season.”

32. Dolphins sometimes gang rape females and kill other dolphin pods babies, because as soon as the baby is dead the female is ready to be impregnated again.

33. No one knows exactly why dolphins beach themselves. However, other researchers think that areas where dolphins strand have an unusual magnetic field because dolphins may use the Earth's magnetic field as a navigational tool.

34. Dolphins typically do not live alone, but rather in schools or pods. Their social structure is intricate, and they appear to experience a broad spectrum of emotions, including comedy. Large pods can have 1,000 members or more.

35. While hunting, dolphins can allegedly stun or paralyze fish with their high-pitched calls, according to some scientists.

36. Dolphins do not breathe automatically as humans do and will die if given a general anesthetic. Their blowholes must be exposed as they sleep at the water's surface.

37. A dolphin carries more oxygen in its blood than a fish and can swim longer; hence, dolphins are better adapted to the sea than are any fish.

38. Dolphin teeth are used for grasping, not chewing. They have no jaw muscles for chewing.

39. Dolphins’ sonar seems not to detect the fine threads of fishing nets, and millions of dolphins have drowned as a result of becoming entangled.

40. Dolphins cannot swim backward, which makes it difficult for them to escape fishing nets. If they can not get to the surface, they can drown in a matter of minutes.

41. In 1971, the Navy dispatched a team of dolphins “armed” with large carbon-dioxide-filled hypodermic needles strapped to their beaks to guard a U.S. Navy base in Vietnam. A lethal injection into the stomach or lungs of a human victim was something the dolphins were taught to perform.

42. While most wild animals avoid contact with humans, wild dolphins are known to play and associate with humans, especially children.

43. Dolphins have names for each other and call out to each other specifically.

44. Pink dolphins, called “botos,” are actually albino dolphins. Although frequent sightings in the Gulf of Mexico have occurred, their usual habitat is Brazil.

45. Dolphins can kill sharks with their noses. In order to plan an assault, they might even encircle a shark.

46. Dolphins are one of the few animals that can use tools. They use broken sea sponges to protect their noses while they forage for food.

47. Dolphins have been known to work with both whales and humans to hunt for food.

48. Like humans, dolphins are mammals, meaning they are endothermic or warm blooded, and offspring are fed milk from mammary glands.

49. Dolphins do not have a sense of smell, but they do have a sense of taste and, like humans, can distinguish between sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes.

50. Dolphins, porpoises, and whales are all mammals called cetaceans, which is from the Greek word meaning “sea monster.”

The narwhal dolphin has a large ivory tusk (like a unicorn), which is often poached. The only remaining populations are in the Greenland Sea and Baffin Bay.

Dolphins have the longest memory in the animal kingdom.

Dolphins sometimes use their penis to hook nets and tow them away, also for digging.

Just one-half of a dolphin’s brain goes to sleep at a time, because they are not automatic breathers. If both halves slept at the same time, the dolphin would drown.

Dolphins can talk and understand each other over the phone.

Dolphins can use echolocation and clicks to describe or show another dolphin an object it has seen.