We all love dolphins, but we know very little about them. Decided to tell in this issue about 10 facts about dolphins, which you will definitely not know. I hope that you will appreciate my article with taste.
- The brain size of dolphins in relation to their body size is much larger than that of chimpanzees, and their behavior proves a high degree of mental development. The brain of an adult dolphin weighs about 1700 grams, while that of a human weighs on average 1400 grams. In addition, dolphins have 2 times more crinkles in the cerebral cortex than humans.
The main reason for this advantage is their super ability to echolocation.
According to the latest scientific data, these animals have a ‘vocabulary’ of 14,000 sound signals, which allows them to communicate with each other as productively as possible and in time to help everyone in need.
If one of the pack members is injured or barely afloat, they support him near the surface, so that the victim could not drown and suffocate. Scientists explain this by their concern for their offspring. Every individual in the pack is valued and everything must be done to keep it alive.
2. Dolphins are the only animals on Earth whose cubs are born tail-first. Do you know why? The birthing process takes from 20 minutes to 2 hours, and the baby can only stay underwater for 7 minutes. And if dolphins were born head-first like land mammals, they would die.
3. Dolphins breathe air. They do not have gills like fish, but they have lungs and a respirator on the upper part of the body. Therefore, the process of breathing at rest has its own peculiarities. During sleep dolphins switch off only one half of the brain and close the opposite eye. The second half of the brain is awake and sends commands for timely rise to the surface of the water for a breath of air. And the eye, which is open in sleep, remains alert and protects the animal from possible danger.
4. Each dolphin has a name to which it responds. The name is assigned by the pack from birth and is retained for life. Like humans, dolphins have six levels of speech organization - sound, syllable, word, phrase, paragraph, context. There are also their own dialects, characteristic of a certain habitat.
Thanks to the ability of high echolocation, animals are able to recognise their name even when the tone of the sound produced changes.
5. The smallest dolphins are about 120 cm long, while the largest (e.g. killer whales) can reach up to 10 meters. Weight ranges from 40 kg to 11 tones! Animals can dive to a depth of up to 305 meters and reach speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour.
6. Dolphins can have from 8 to 212 teeth, but they do not use them to chew food. Teeth are only needed to capture prey, which they swallow whole.
7. In ancient Greece, killing dolphins was considered sacrilege and was punishable by death. And in ancient Rome there was a belief that dolphins are the guides of souls to the ‘Islands of the Blessed’. Images of these animals were found in the hands of Roman mummies. It was supposed that statuettes of dolphins served as a talisman for the passage to the afterlife.
An illustrative case occurred in New Zealand in 2004. Dolphins managed to save people from a white shark attack. A man with his daughter and two friends were resting 100 meters from the shore. Soon they were surrounded by a pack of dolphins, who furiously beat their tails on the water and did not let them get out of the circle. For 40 minutes the dolphins ‘held the defense’ and only opened the ring when the shark swam away.
8. Dolphins do not feel odors, as there are no olfactory receptors in the respiratory organs. But they, like humans, do have a sense of taste. Dolphins can distinguish sweet food from salty or bitter. An interesting fact is that they have two stomachs. One of them serves for storing food and the other for digestion.
9. In Soviet times, marine animals were used for military purposes. Dolphins were trained to find mines, rescue sailors of sunken ships and even destroy enemy submarines. Later, such mammals helped in the treatment of children suffering from autism and nervous system disorders.
In treatises of ancient philosophers these amazing animals are endowed with the ability to be friends, love and compassion. More than once their readiness to help has been confirmed in the modern world.
10. The average lifespan of dolphins is only 20-30 years, but some can live up to 50 years. The oldest dolphin in human care was Nellie from an American amusement park. She died at the age of 61.
