Posts Tagged ‘Dolphin species’

The huge gang of dolphins 2

// April 22nd, 2009 // View Comments // About Dolphins

By Melissa Bañuelos

Part II

To continue the first chapter…

common_dolphin
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.


commersons-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

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

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.






frasers-dolphin
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 // View 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
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
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-withe-sided-dolphin
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-dolphinBottlenose 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