Dolphins –the Intelligent Mammals

By Author: Ann Philip
Total Articles: 91
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Dolphins are widely believed to be amongst the most intelligent of all animals. Their friendly nature makes them good companions of human beings. But this species facing is a biggest threat from human beings. It became a hobby for people to catch dolphins and train it to act as they want.

Scientists have the opinion that dolphins are as clever as human beings. This is because of their immense brainpower, so we can treat them just like we treat our human friends. Dolphins belonging to the family Delphinidae are considered as the second brilliant creatures in the world after human beings. This is because of their distinct personality. Earlier chimpanzees were ranked below human beings, but dolphins took that position by taking advantage of their large and complex structure of brain.

Dolphins come under the mammalian group called cetacean and this family of mammals can be easily recognized by their huge body structure and complex brain. Dolphin’s brain when compared to human beings is comparatively larger and better developed. This makes them feel emotions like happy, compassion, humor and self control.

Bottlenose ...
... dolphin is the commonly found dolphin variety in the world. It got its name from its external appearance. Bottlenose dolphin is grey in color and has a long jaw that protrudes out as a snout. When compared to other dolphins, bottlenose dolphin’s intelligence quotient is slightly higher and this is the reason for people using it for army purposes like mine detection. They got good grasping capacity. If we taught one dolphin on how to jump through rings, it will immediately pass this trick to other dolphins. They can easily follow symbol based language and studies show that they are able to recognize themselves in a mirror. They communicate with each other in sign based languages. Just like people use home phones linked to providers like FiOS Digital Voice for communication, will there come a time where dolphins chat with each other through land phones? Sometimes dolphins behave similar to human beings and think about their future. An American television program named ‘Flipper’ - a dolphin show, received a wide round applause for its originality and style of theme.

Dolphins are mammals and they give birth to their young ones. Just like human beings, they will get the help of another dolphin to deliver their babies. The babies will stay with their mother for some years. The babies will get detached from the mother when they become capable of protecting themselves and hunt for their own food. The habitats of dolphins vary according to species. While bottlenose dolphins prefer to live in warm regions like the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, other dolphin species like to be in areas like New Zealand, Argentina, Chili, Indonesia, West Africa and Antarctica.

Nearly 32 varieties of dolphins are found in the earth. This includes the killer whale, the hump-back dolphin, the hector's dolphin, the short-finned pilot whale, the long-finned pilot whale, the Pygmy Killer Whale and the black dolphin. The killer whale is the largest dolphin and it lives both in ice cold waters and warm oceans. As its name indicates this dolphin hunt and feed on whales. The hump-back dolphin gets its name on its humps and long dorsal fins. This type of dolphin can be mostly seen in the West African coast and the Indian Ocean coast.

In most cases a dolphin will live up to 20 years. But in some rare cases this will be extended to nearly 48 years. Besides some common predators like sharks and killer whales, humans are the major threat to dolphins. Don’t you think our marine life is precious to us? It is valuable to us, so we have to protect it and preserve it in a better way.