Common bottlenose dolphin

The common bottlenose dolphin is a smart, friendly sea animal with a curved smile and a short, round snout that looks a little like a bottle. Even though it lives in the water and swims like a fish, a dolphin is really a mammal, just like a dog, a cat, or you. It lives in warm and mild oceans all around the world, both near the shore and far out at sea.

Because a dolphin is a mammal, it cannot breathe underwater. It swims up to the top of the sea and breathes air through a special hole on top of its head called a blowhole. A dolphin can hold its breath and dive down, then come back up for more air whenever it needs to.

Dolphins have a clever way of finding their way in the water. They make lots of clicking sounds, and then they listen for the echoes that bounce back off things around them. This is called echolocation, and it helps them find fish, spot things in their path, and stay safe, even where the water is dark. Their food is mostly fish, squid, eels, and shrimp, which they swallow whole.

Bottlenose dolphins are very social and live in groups called pods. A pod often has around fifteen dolphins, but sometimes many pods come together and hundreds of dolphins swim as one big group. Dolphins in a pod often work as a team, herding a school of fish together so it is easier for everyone to eat.

Common bottlenose dolphins live in many oceans and there are lots of them, so scientists count the whole species as least concern, which is good news. Even so, dolphins can be hurt when they get tangled in fishing nets or when the sea gets dirty. People help by keeping the ocean clean and by making fishing safer for dolphins.