I have only seen a Dolphin in the wild on one occation, but I will never forget it. I was out fishing on the ocean in our small boat with my dad and grandfather and a single dolphin came up out of the water just a few yards from the boat as if it wanted to say hello. It came up a few more times after that, and then swam away. To this day I do not know what type of dolphin it was, but I do know that it was a beautiful and graceful creature.

Dolphins are marine mammals closely related to whales and porpuses. The thirty two different species can be found in both fresh and salt water, the most well known of these is the bottle nosed dolphin.

Dolphins have well-defined, beaklike snouts and conical teeth. In one day dolphins eat an amount of food, mostly fish and squid, equal to nearly one-third of their weight. They travel in groups of varying size, from aggregations estimated at tens of thousands of members to groups that contain only a few members. Dolphins cooperate with eachother when hunting or catching fish and they also help each other if one is sick or injured. If a dolphin has trouble getting to the surface to breathe, the other pod members will support it with their fins and swim with it to the surface.

If a dolphin is taken from it’s pod, it suffers from stress and becomes depressed and lonely. It’s pod members also experience the same effects.

Dolphins are playful and curious creatures, chasing each other, tossing seaweed around, riding on the bow or stern wakes of boats and jumping out of the water. They are also known for helping rescue and protect humans in danger.

Dolphins can discriminate objects by echolocation which means they send out high frequency clicks that bounce off prey and other objects and use the returning echoes to distinguish the objects. This system enables the dolphin to navigate and to detect food in their dark underwater world. They also emit whistles that are single-toned squeals which they use to communicate.

Dolphins on the Discovery Channel. This site has a lot of interesting information, sound clips and videos.