Atlantic Spotted Dolphin Research Paper

Improved Essays
The Atlantic spotted dolphin is a mammal that is a part of the cetacean family. When it comes to appearance, these dolphins have a grayish skin color with dark and light spots scattered all around the body. When they are born, they are just gray, however as they get older they begin to form spot which appear to increase in number as they get older. Once the Atlantic spotted dolphin is fully matured, it will reach a maximum length of 7 ½ ft and can way over 300 pounds. The females usually weigh 20 pounds less than the males. Their body is designed for fast swimming and acrobatic performances. The Atlantic spotted dolphins diet consists of small fish, squid and octopus. When hunting for food, these dolphins make dives of 30 ft or less, however they can be seen reaching up to 200 ft or more. The Atlantic spotted dolphin can be found living in tropical climates all year round and prefer living around ant coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Nobody is sure how long these mammals live but it is guessed to be about 30 to 40 years. This is sure not as long as humans live. Some nonliving thing that live in that exist in the Atlantic Ocean are sand, rocks, obviously water, and sunken ships. Some living things that live in the Atlantic Ocean are manatees, sea lions, humpback whales, Atlantic ghost crab, starfish, …show more content…
They adapted to the aquatic environment when it was free from boats, pollution, noise, and fishing. Some threats to the Atlantic spotted dolphin in habitat degradation, boat traffic, and fishing interactions. Humans have exploited the of the ecosystem. Marine mammals utilize the environment for resting, and socializing. An example of habitat degradation is commercial and recreational vessels. These vessels pollute the water by oil spills, sewage, gas drilling and construction. The people need to realize that there are animals under them trying to

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Harbour Porpoises are not natural prey for the Bottlenose Dolphin and are dwarfed in size at…

    • 512 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Shark Bay Research Paper

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Its skin is dark to light grey that fades to white on its belly, with a slightly hooked dorsal fin which is settled midway along the body. It has a short rostrum containing 18–26 cone-shaped teeth, and a noticeable forehead that contains oily fats. It is thought that the forehead helps to concentrate and produce the high-frequency whistles, clicks and pulses that is used by the dolphin to find its food. The forehead also features the dolphin’s blowhole. The dolphin can grow up to 4 m in length and weigh up to 650 kg, but those in Australia are usually smaller, about 2.6 m long and 120…

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Some species are found throughout the world. For example, fin whales, minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), sei whales (Balaenoptera borealis), blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), and humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have worldwide distributions. Bryde's whales (Balaenoptera edeni) are found throughout the tropics and…

    • 1501 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Overfishing In The 1800s

    • 1403 Words
    • 6 Pages

    They are driven close to shore, where they are then dragged onto the beach by a lance in an effort to sever their spines. Fishermen tend to claim that dolphins are a main factor in depleting the fish stock (similar to the American overkilling of wolves because of depletion of farm supply animals rather than relying on safer techniques, and have group hunts to take down pods of porpoises. According to the WDC, dolphin meat is often mislabelled as whale meat, which is often considered to be of much higher quality. Though dolphin meat is sold to hospitals and schools for consumption, it is shown to exceed the legal maximum amount of mercury at 0.4ppm, according to the WDC, and is therefore potentially toxic. It is not even small amounts of whales and dolphins killed in these provinces, either; according to the WDC, it is a staggering 80% of the marine creatures on the Japanese coast harvested so cruelly for meat and “pest control”.…

    • 1403 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sea Otters Research Paper

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Sea otters forage for food at the bottom of the sea and can dive up to around 300 feet. They primarily live in the water and can hold their breath for up to 5 minutes.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This only helps to show why the orcinus orca belongs in the wild.] Every pod of whales is diverse from each location. If you were to take them out of the living that they were normally in, their whole life would change. Humans take away these whales rights and torture them for their own entertainment purposes. When training the whales to do tricks for their shows they do not feed them until they perform the given task with no mistakes.…

    • 1076 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Underwater creatures are amazing and delightful. Some spotted jellyfish that are large have small fishes living with them. Narwhals have a tusk that is actually a tooth that can grow to 10 feet long, but not all narwhals have tusks. Octopi are the smartest invertebrates. Octopi are able to open a container with prey in it.…

    • 406 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Modern Jaws Research Paper

    • 1426 Words
    • 6 Pages

    They have been known to be friendly at times and will often come to the rescue in times of need. In this specific incident a group of dolphins came to the rescue when a group of swimmers found themselves in danger. According to Kristin Hunt, a group of about seven dolphins swarmed towards Rob Howe and two other girls. The animals formed a circle around them and began to aggressively slap their tails against the water. Howe wasn’t aware of what was happening until an opening appeared for a second and he spied an unmistakeable great white shark.…

    • 1426 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    There are some clear differences between bottlenose dolphins, and killer whales. Killer whales are the largest members of the dolphin family and display patches of black and white spots. These mammals can be up to 30 feet or more in length, weighing about 12,000 pounds. Killer whales are some of the fastest sea creatures in the world reaching speeds up to 30 mph. The bottlenose dolphin is gray with a lighter belly and ranges from 6 to 12ft.…

    • 83 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mirror self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: A case of cognitive convergence What was done? An experiment was performed on two dolphins one was 13 years old male Bottlenose dolphin and other was 17 years old male bottle nose dolphin. This experiment was performed to see if there is any ability in dolphin to use the mirror to inspect any marked part of the body and to prove whether they have self- recognition ability in them or not.…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Beluga whales lack a dorsal fin in return it gives them the ability to swim backwards. Characteristics of a beluga whale include the following: belugas are stout in small in size, they have a blunt head that gives the distinctive whale look, they have a small beak used to catch and grip prey. Belugas have small eyes and they can't really see much, and thick layers of blubber that allows them to live in the frigid waters in the Arctic. They have a very big round melon(head) that is the main reason why they are so intelligent. Unlike other whales belugas are the only one that has an unfused neck that allows them to turn their head left and right or up and…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The distribution of bottlenose dolphins is cosmopolitan over temperate and tropical waters, and is variable based on stock or ecotype (Shane, 2004; Zolman, 2002). All three ecotypes described earlier have been documented in bottlenose dolphins, with bottlenose dolphin inshore and coastal ecotypes sometimes documented adjacent to each other (Nichols et al., 2007; Shane, 2004; Zolman, 2002). Offshore bottlenose dolphins that inhabit pelagic, open waters where temperature is low and depth is steep are largely migratory and have large group sizes, similar to others of the family Delphinidae (Rossbach and Herzing, 1999). Site fidelity also emerges as a common characteristic for bottlenose dolphins inhabiting coastal, shallow, and protected waters. This has been well documented in the two longest running studies of bottlenose dolphins, one being on the Sarasota Atlantic, or common, bottlenose dolphin (T. tursiops) community (e.g., Scott, Wells, & Irvine, 1990; Wells & Scott, 1990; Wells et al., 1987;) and the other being on the Shark Bay Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (T. aduncus) community (e.g., Connor & Smolker, 1985; Connor et al., 2000; Smolker, Richards, Connor, & Pepper, 1992).…

    • 917 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Dolphins, bottlenose dolphins are one of my favourite animals because they are highly intelligent, social and playful. Bottlenose dolphins love “talking” to one another, they use certain sounds, to communicate danger, or prey to each other. Each dolphin even has their own name, which consists of many clicks, whistles, and squeaks. Unfortunately, dolphin populations are low because of threats like fishing nets, oil spills, habitat loss and climate change. In the last 2 years, more than 700 bottlenose dolphins washed up on shores and died.…

    • 105 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Killer Whale Stereotypes

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The killer whale or orca is another name for species Orcinus orca. It is a toothed whale that belongs to the family Delphinidae in the order Cetacea.. They are found globally in all oceans. In fact, after man they are the most widespread mammal in the world. Killer whales live in pods.…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Baiji River Dolphin is pale blue/gray and white under. They live approximately for 25 years. These dolphins consume a wide variety of freshwater fishes. The Baiji Dolphins are quite shy, consequently there isn’t much information given about their behavior. They depend largely on underwater sound for communication, feeding and orientation.…

    • 1733 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays