Dolphin Swimming

Dolphin Fun Facts

// October 12th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // About Dolphins, Dolphins for kids

Did you know…..

Dolphins may live in water, but they don’t drink it?  They get all the water they need from the fish they eat.

Dolphins have teeth but don’t chew their dinner?  They use their teeth to catch their fish then swallow them whole!

You can tell a dolphin’s age by counting rings in their teeth like the rings of a trunk of a tree?

Killer whales are not whales at all, they are actually part of the dolphin family?  They can be up to 30 ft in length and weigh 20 000 lbs!

Dolphins only sleep with half their brain at a time and with one eye open?  They need to be at least half awake in order to breathe.

Dolphins communicate using clicks, grunts and whistles?  Every dolphin has it’s own “signature whistle”.

Baby dolphins are called “calves”, just like baby cows?  Calves stay close to their mothers for 3-6 years.

If you have any dolphin questions, let us know, we’ll be happy to help you out!  Leave a comment below and we will answer.  Hope you can join us to swim with the dolphins very soon.

Swimming with Dolphins- A Kid’s Eye View

// September 29th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // About Dolphins, Cancun / Isla Mujeres, Dolphins for kids

Hi everybody, my name is Sam and I am 5 years old, I am in kindergarten and I love swimming and boats and all the things in the ocean.  The other day my mommy and daddy and me had a really great day, they took me to swim with dolphins!  It was really cool, first we got to ride on a big boat, I looked for pirates but didn’t see any, maybe next time.  When we got off the boat, I saw a whole bunch of dolphins, jumping in the air and waving to me and saying hi, I wanted to jump in the water with them but mommy and daddy told me I had to wait.

Dolphins Saying Hello

I was so excited, I didn’t want to wait, but the nice man with the toy dolphin told me that I had to learn how to train the dolphins.  He told me never, ever, ever touch the eyes or the hole on their back that they breathe through.  You have to be very gentle with dolphins!  We practiced putting our hands out so the dolphins would come and give us a kiss and dance with us.  Then we put on our life jackets that help us float and we went to where the dolphins live.

Be Gentle with Dolphins

We were so lucky, we got to be friends with two mommy dolphins and their little babies!  The mommies were named Shelley and Daniella and the babies were Noe and Dani.  They were so cute, I told my mommy that I wanted to take a dolphin home, but she said that two cats and a dog were enough and that a dolphin wouldn’t like to sleep in my bed.  We got into the water and the dolphins were right there with us!!  They swam right in front of me and I got to touch them, they feel like the floatie toys I use at the beach but nicer.  Their backs are grey but their tummies are kind of pink and they always look like they are smiling.




I was a little scared when it was my turn to kiss the dolphin, but it was so fun and easy and the dolphin kissed me on my cheek and I kissed her on the lips!  I put my hands out in front of me and the dolphin put their flippers in my hands and we danced, it was so cool!  We got to splash the dolphins with water and they splashed me too, they swam really really fast and they jumped high in the sky!  I was sad when it was time to go, I had so much fun with my dolphin friends.  I want to go back again really soon, mommy said if I am a good boy we can go for my birthday.  I think I will bring them a cake made of fish.

My Dolphin Friend

–(Sam is a real kid who really did swim with the dolphins, he’s my kid in fact!  I’m the mean mommy who wouldn’t let him bring the dolphin home.  We went to the Isla Mujeres location and did the program called “Dolphin Encounter“.  This is a great program for young children, a lot of interaction with the animals and time to play in the water with them.  Outside of the actual swim with dolphins program, there is a play area for children and a pool with a shallow area for kids.  Contact Dolphin Discovery to book a tour that is great for the whole family.)

Catherine Fulop, visits Dolphin Discovery at Cancun

// August 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // About Dolphins, Cancun / Isla Mujeres, Locations

Due to the production of her spectacular photo session at Isla Mujeres for CARAS magazine on its Argentinean version, the actress and model Catherine Fulop together with her cameraman, make up artists and other members of her staff, visited the gorgeous location of Dolphin Discovery at Isla Mujeres, a piece of paradise located a few minutes from Cancun.

The Venezuelan actress, loved and known in Argentina, had the opportunity to swim with Dolphins and enjoy different activities, as the thrilling foot push, dorsal tow or belly ride, offered by Dolphin Discovery in its programs. Fulop and its team enjoyed the natural environment beside the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea at Isla Mujeres, facing the coast of Cancun, famous tourist destination in Mexico.

This article is a promotion action by Dolphin Discovery Group towards this tourist destination with the purpose of proving the world that Mexico is still a strong and beautiful nation.

The huge gang of dolphins 2

// April 22nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // About Dolphins

By Melissa Bañuelos

Part II

To continue the first chapter…

Common Dolphin: They are colorful dolphins with complex patterns. Their belly is white and their back is dark gray to black from the head to the tail, forming a V on the sides. The flanks are light gray behind the dorsal fin, just like an “hourglass”. Despite its name, the common dolphin is not the popular dolphin, that place, as we have seen is for the bottlenose dolphin.



Commerson’s Dolphin: Described by Philibert Commerson, this is one of the smallest dolphin species. These dolphins are found in South America waters and the Indian Ocean. Even though they look like porpoises and have white-black patterns, they are part of the dolphin family.






Clymene Dolphin: They are similar to spinner dolphins, but smaller and more robust, with shorter beak. They have a three-shade color pattern with a dark gray cape, light gray sides, and white belly. They have a dark strip on the middle of the top of the beak.








Dusky Dolphin: they have a white grayish band on both sides that forms tow pointing blazes and a light colored face. They are found on the Southern Hemisphere, specially in South America, New Zealand, Indic Ocean and South Africa.







Fraser’s Dolphin: Fraser’s dolphin has blue-grey upper sides, and has a white or pink belly. Some of them, especially the males, have highlighted dark body stripe; the width and intensity of the stripe increases with age. They have a well-defined and short beak.


Comming soon! The Huge Gang of Dolphins 3!

The huge gang of dolphins

// March 12th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // About Dolphins

By Melissa Bañuelos

Part I

We are used to dolphin faces in waterparks and aquariums, we watched the movie “Flipper”, we know how to draw a dolphin, we know how to identify it from sharks and other marine animals, but most of the time we are just talking about one type of dolphin called “the bottle nose dolphin”.

Contributing to the awesome variety of our Planet, there are different dolphin species: 37 types of oceanic dolphins, 4 river dolphins and 6 types of porpoises. In this article we will talk about the most common species and their main characteristics that will be useful to identify them. Next time you see a dolphin you will know which one of all the cousins is greeting you, probably it won’t be Flipper.





Atlantic Spotted Dolphin: The upper body of the Atlantic spotted dolphin is a dark gray color and they develop spots as they get older. They have a chunky beak with a white spot at the end.









Hump Backed Dolphin: They are generally gray with a lighter color along their underside. When they are young they don’t have a hump, but as they grow older the hump will appear infront of the dorsal fin. Sometimes the hump can be a third of the full body length.







Atlantic White-sided Dolphin: Black on the back, with dark grey lines and a long white oval blaze below the dorsal fin, above the blaze there is an ochre band and their belly is white. They have a black ring around the eyes.






Bottlenose dolphin: As we have mentioned, this is one of the most common species. They are truly flexible in their behavior and docile with humans. Their short beak has the shape of a bottle that appears to be floating on the water.






Part II: The Huge Ganng of Dolphins

Echolocation

// February 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // About Dolphins

Echolocation, also called biosonar, is the biological sonar used by several animals such as dolphins, shrews, most bats and whales. It is important to marine mammals because it allows them to navigate and feed in the dark at night and in deep or murky water where it isn’t easy to see.

Toothed whales emit a focused beam of high-frequency clicks. Sounds are generated by passing air from the bony nares through the phonic lips. These sounds are reflected by the dense concave bone of the cranium and an air sac at its base. The focused beam is modulated by a large fatty organ known as the ‘melon’. This acts like an acoustic lens because it is composed of lipids of differing densities. Most toothed whales use clicks in series, or click train, for echolocation. Toothed whale whistles do not appear to be used in echolocation. Different rates of click production in a click train result on familiar barks, squeals and growls of the bottlenose dolphin.

The major areas of sound reception are the fat-filled cavities of the lower jaw bones. Sounds are received and conducted through the lower jaw to the middle ear, inner ear, and then to hearing centers in the brain via the auditory nerve. Lateral sound may be received through fatty lobes surrounding the ears with a similar acoustic density to the bone. The brain receives the sound waves in the form of nerve impulses, which relay the messages of sound and enable the dolphin to interpret the sound’s meaning.

Bottlenose dolphins are able to learn and later recognize the echo signatures returned by preferred prey species.

Cetacean evolution

// February 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // About Dolphins

The cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) are descendants of land-living mammals. There are some evidences that confirm this fact: their need to breathe air from the surface; the bones of their fins that resemble the jointed hands of land mammals; and the vertical movement of their spines, a common characteristic of a running mammal rather than the horizontal movement of fishes.

The traditional theory of cetacean evolution was that whales were related to the Mesonychids, an extinct order of carnivorous ungulates (hoofed animals), which looked rather like wolves with hooves and were a sister group of Artiodactyls.

However, since the early 1990s analysis of a wide variety of protein and DNA sequence data consistently indicated that whales should be included among Artiodactyls. Most probably they belong to a sister group of Hippopotamids. In other words, the proto-whales were former artiodactyls that kept typical features of their mesonychid ancestry (such as triangular teeth that modern artiodactyls have already lost).

The Pakicetids were hoofed-mammals that are sometimes classified as the earliest whales. They lived in the early Eocene, around 53 million years ago. They looked rather like dogs with hoofed feet and long, thick tails. They have been linked to whales by their ears: the structure of the auditory bulla is formed from the ectotympanic bone only. The shape of the ear region in Pakicetus is highly unusual and only resembles the skulls of whales.

The most remarkable of the recent discoveries has been the Ambulocetus, which looked like a three-meter long mammalian crocodile. Ambulocetus was clearly amphibious, as its back legs were better adapted for swimming than for walking on land, and it probably swam by vertically undulating its back, as otters, seals and whales do. Smaller cousins of the Ambulocetus was the Remingtonocetid family, which had longer snouts, and were slightly better adapted for underwater life. In both groups, the nasal openings were at the tip of the snout, like in land-mammals.

Known Protocetids had large fore and hindlimbs that could support their body on land, and it is likely that they lived in the sea and on land. It is unclear at present whether Protocetids had the horizontal tail fin of modern cetaceans. However, what is clear, is that they were more adapted to an aquatic life-style. The nasal openings are now halfway up the snout; a first step towards the telescoped condition in modern whales.

Basilosaurus and Dorudon lived around 38 million years ago, and were fully recognizable whales entirely living in the ocean. Basilosaurus was as big as the larger modern whales.
Although they look very much like modern whales, basilosaurids and dorudontids lacked the ‘melon organ‘ that allows their descendants to use echolocation as effectively as modern whales. They had small brains; this suggests they were solitary and didn’t have a complex social structure. Basilosaurus had two tiny but well-formed hind legs which were probably used as claspers when mating; they are a small reminder of their ancestors’ lives. Interestingly, the pelvic bones associated with these hind limbs were no longer connected to the vertebral column as it was in protocetids.

Squalodon lived from the early middle Oligocene to the middle Miocene, around 33-14 million years ago. Skulls of Squalodon show evidence of the first hypothesized appearance of echolocation.

During the early Miocene, echolocation developed in its modern form. Early dolphins including Kentriodon and Hadrodelphis, were from small to medium-sized toothed cetaceans with largely symmetrical skulls, and thought likely to include ancestors of some modern species. Kentriodontines ate small fish and other nectonic organisms; they are thought to have been active echolocators, and might have formed schools.

Today, the whale hind parts are internal and reduced, and they serve as anchor for the muscles of the genitalia. Occasionally, the genes that code for longer extremities cause a modern whale to develop miniature legs.
Modern dolphin skeletons have two small, rod-shaped pelvic bones thought to be vestigial hind limbs. In October 2006 an unusual Bottlenose Dolphin was captured in Japan; it had small fins on each side of its genital slit which scientists believe to be a more pronounced development of these vestigial hind limbs.