Bottlenose dolphin

A bottlenose dolphin is a kind of dolphin. The name "bottlenose" comes from its snout being shaped like a bottle. It breathes through a hole on top of its head. It is intelligent, and its brain is large. Bottlenose dolphins are closely related to porpoises. They are skilled and accurate hunters which eat small fish. Bottlenose dolphins are grey, with dark grey near their blowhole (the small hole on the top of their head for breating). They are light grey on their belly. This is called countershading: it makes them less easy to see. When it is grown up, it is about 2 to 4 meters (6.6 to 13.1ft) and about 150 to 650 kilograms (330 1430lb). The males are a usually a bit bigger than females. Dolphins which live in warm places are smaller than dolphins that live in cold places.  

 Taxonomy 
In 1998 the first species was described, T. truncatus. It is believed that it and the Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin (T. aduncus) emerged in the early or middle Pleistocene, between 1 and 2 million years ago.

Some subspecies have been named, they are:

 T. t. truncatus, the nominotypical subspecies
 T. t. ponticus, or the Black Sea bottlenose dolphin
 T. t. gephyreus, or Lahille's bottlenose dolphin
 T. t. nuuanu, or the Eastern Tropical Pacific bottlenose dolphin

Another subspecies was described at this time, as T. t. gillii, which was long considered a distinct subspecies of the species T. gillii. However, it is considered a synonym of T. truncatus.

Many recent studies show that this species may have evolved from some current species, depending on the point of view of Paleontologists and scientists, but the most accepted is that the species evolved from other ancestral species.

 Predation 
This species is heavily preyed upon by large predators, such as the Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) and the Orca (Orcinus orca). Some scientists believe that in the past, this species may have been preyed upon by other shark species, such as the Narrow white shark (Carcharodon hastalis).

 Diet 
This species feeds on small fish, squid, crabs and small shark species. They often use echolocation to find their prey, a kind of sonar.

References

 Related pages 

 Dolphins
 Cetacea
 Killer whale

Category:Oceanic dolphins