Dolphin Facts

Dolphins are very intelligent animals. Dolphins entertain children and people in dolphin shows. Dolphins are trained by humans to perform various movements in and out of water as a dolphin dance. They can jump as high as thirty feet. They like to spin in the air. People can swim with dolphins and even feed them.

How do dolphins move in water?

These grey warm blooded mammals can swim upto 260 meters under the water. Dolphins flap their tails upwards and downwards when swimming, unlike fishes.

Where do dolphins live?

They stay in tropical and temperate oceans. Some live in rivers.

How do dolphins breathe?

Dolphins have to be conscious when they breathe, unlike human beings; so a dolphin is never fully asleep. These marine animals have a nostril on the top of their head, called blow hole, which is used for breathing. They have no sense of smell. They have better hearing than humans.

Dolphin communication

Dolphins communicate by making clicking, squeaking and squawking and whistling sounds. Each dolphin has its own distinct sound. They also communicate by flipping their tails and blowing bubbles.

Dolphins often just raise their head above water to look for danger. This is called spy hopping. Dolphins can bump against each other to move a dolphin away from another. Dolphins also communicate through echolocation, where the dolphin sends out a sound in water, and the sound hits an object like a fish, and comes back as an echo. The echo gives an idea about the object’s location, size, etc.

Dolphins live in groups of up to a dozen. A group of dolphins is called a pod.

Sharks feast on dolphins. Dolphins have the ability to see through a shark’s stomach and see if his stomach is empty or not.

Types of dolphins

There are 36 types of ocean dolphins and 5 kinds of river dolphins. The Killer Whale or Orca is a type of dolphin.

Endangered species

There are less than 600 Indus river dolphins left.

For more such interesting General Knowledge articles and videos, visit: General Knowledge for Kids.