Dolphins

Dolphins are warm blooded mammals which look like fish and live in the warm and temperate seas of the world. Their long sleek body is perfectly adapted to their environment. Their blue gray back and white under belly helps hide them from predators.

Dolphins are very social animal with strong family bonds and live in a group called a pod with many generations. They strongly support each other.

Dolphins are very much in harmony with nature. They are even tolerant of sharks as long as the leave them alone, but can kill sharks if they are attacked.

Dolphins are very friendly among them selves and to human. They see to like humans to touch their soft, warm smooth skin and love to play.

Dolphins are very intelligent, some have bigger brains than humans. They seem to have a complex language with which they communicate with each other and an echo location to "see" their environment.

Dolphins seem unusually happy. Besides their perpetual smile (due to the shape of their jaw), they are always playing and seem happy.

These highly intelligent animals seen to be able to live with nature with out changing anything.

Scientific Classification 
     
A. Order--Cetacea.
     
The scientific order Cetacea includes all whales. This order 
is further divided into three suborders.

1. Odontoceti (toothed whales).
The toothed whales include dolphins, porpoises, beluga 
whales, beaked whales, and sperm whales.

2. Mysticeti (baleen whales).
The baleen whales include blue whales, gray whales, and 
right whales.

3. Archaeoceti.
The archaeocetes are an extinct group of whales, of which 
only fossils remain.

B. Family--Delphinidae.
     
Dolphins and their immediate kin are included in the 
scientific family Delphinidae. This family is represented by 
about 30 species, including common dolphins, pilot whales, 
and killer whales (not actually whales).
     
C. Genus, species--Tursiops truncatus.
     
D. Fossil Record.

1. Whales arose 50 million years ago from (now extinct) 
primitive mammals that went back into the sea.

Two small rod-shaped pelvic bones, buried deep in the body 
muscle of toothed whales, may be remnants of the hind limbs 
of these primitive mammals. 
     
 2.Modern forms of both odontocetes and mysticetes appear in 
the fossil record five to seven million years ago.

3.The genus Tursiops first appears in the fossil record 
about five million years ago.

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