The bottlenose dolphin may be the smartest-and friendliest-animal in the sea. Though these creatures are swift predators, they have been known to help people out of sticky situations, even guarding them from shark attacks! When hunting, these dolphins often work as a team. Plus, dolphins are the only aquatic mammals known to use tools in the wild-and pass on the knowledge to their young!
Smiley Face: The bottlenose dolphin looks like it has a permanent smile on its face, but when it opens its jaws, it reveals up to 100 sharp teeth. The dolphin uses these weapons to impale fish and squid so they can't slip away.
Sound it Out: The dolphin often finds prey with sound, the same way bats do. The aquatic mammal sends out a series of clicking sounds from air sacs in its forehead. The sound waves that bounce off prey sound different to the dolphin, telling it where meals are.
A Helping Fin[]
A bottlenose dolphin could easily kill a human by jabbing with its nose, but the creature seems to like people. There have been several reports of dolphins rescuing injured divers by pushing them to the surface (left). A pod of dolphins once saved a group of swimmers from a great white shark attack-they swam circles around the people to get between them and the 10-foot shark. The dolphins led the swimmers toward shore until the shark swam away! Dolphins are one of the few sea creatures that can fight off attacking sharks.
Dolphin Tools: Dolphins are smart, and some of them have even learned to use tools! They break sponges from the ocean floor and use them to cover their snouts while foraging in the sand, protecting them from the stings of hidden, venomous creatures.
Sea Hunt: Bottlenose dolphins hunt both on their own and with pod members. When working together, the dolphins will chase schools of fish toward the seabed, and even toward the shore, where the prey have less room to escape.
First Breath[]
- Being a mammal, a female dolphin gives birth to live young. The baby comes out tail first from the mother's womb.
- The young emerges fully, looking like a miniature version of its parent. The baby snaps its own umbilical cord so it can begin to swim.
- The young dolphin doesn't know how to breathe, so the mother nudges it up to the surface so the baby's blowhole will be exposed and the baby can take its first breath.
Trivia[]
- This card's front illustration is also used in the Wildlife Explorer series for the Bottlenose Dolphin's profile.
- The images for "First Breath" are also shared between the two series, with the title "Breathless Birth" and a fourth image of the baby nursing from the mother.
- It follows the Fennec Fox in the Wildlife Explorer series, who also shares their illustration between the two cards.
- The bottlenose dolphin is the only modern-day saltwater cetacean not featured in Monsters of the Deep, and one of two modern cetaceans in general with this distinction, alongside River Dolphins.
- Both are featured in Strange Wonders instead.
- The bottlenose dolphin is featured on several Monster Mania cards:
- It is first featured in It's All Relative! on Monster Mania 30.
- The Monster Mania card comes several packets before the dolphin's card, and refers to it as simply "dolphin".
- It is later featured in Know Your Noses on Monster Mania 86.
- It is first featured in It's All Relative! on Monster Mania 30.
- The species listed on the card is the Common Bottlenose Dolphin.