It is clearly quite unnecessary to offer an introduction to the popular dolphin for it has conquered the hearts of many, throughout the world. This extraordinary legless sea mammal has held the high esteem of fishermen for centuries - who give it their respect as a consequence of its friendly attitude towards man. Hell, I have though many times that dolphins may actually be on a higher level of existence than us in a spiritual sense, but regardless of such matters, they often seem more intelligent than the majority of humans on this planet, at least by what I have seen. Anyway...
The bottlenose dolphin moves in the water with an ease which makes it the envy of all others - the fish which are its prey, in particular. This creature has a huge appetite and spends a considerable amount of time hunting beneath the surface in order to satisfy its needs. The bottlenose dolphin is a very sociable animal and lives in groups, usually between 10 and 20 dolphins on average.
As many of us know, with it being blessed with a happy disposition, the dolphin plays a lot and nothing is more exciting for an aquatic life lover than to watch its antics as it leaps, twists, turns, dives and races along. The special texture of a dolphin's skin enables it to swim at incredible speed since it offers minimum resistance to the water. It propels itself by vertical movements of the tail which is itself merely a modification of the mammalian tail.
The bottlenose dolphin is one of the most loquacious animals in the ocean: the members of a group speak to each other ceaselessly by means of a complicated language of cries and whistles. The dolphin also navigates by sonar - emitting very high-pitched cries which echo back when they strike an obstruction, also known as "echolocation." Per Wikipedia: "Echolocation, also called bio sonar, is the biological sonar used by several kinds of animals. Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these echoes to locate and identify the objects. Echolocation is used for navigation and for foraging (or hunting) in various environments."
It is thought that the special bump located on the front of its head is a receptor organ.
Many people, including experts, consider that with its enormous brain, the dolphin is probably the most intelligent of all mammals, after man. Like I said before, it seems to me that they have more intelligence than the majority of mankind albeit there are different types of intelligence, so it is hard to put a set model out there to use in comparison. Basically, what I'm trying to say, is that a person could be really slow and dumb in most things but be a genius in certain things. With the diversity of life on this planet within this grand cosmos, there is no IQ test out there that can accurately measure the limits of intelligent beings, no matter how ya slice it! But, I'll wait until they can upload our consciousness into a computer before I can say for sure; ha!
I could type so much about this friendly mammal, but I guess I'll stop right here. There are so many stories about how dolphins have saved the lives of humans, killed mean sharks, etc., that it would take a long while just to talk about that. Anyway, praise be the dolphins!
Related Links:
* Bottlenose Dolphin Facts and Pictures -- National Geographic Kids (Link is no longer active)
* Bottlenose dolphin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Semi-Related Blog Link: "We need to keep the Shark Population thriving..."
Shopping Link via Amazon for Dolphin-Related Products, Posters, etc. (Link is no longer active)
---End of Post "Intelligent Bottlenose Dolphin"
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