Common Bottlenose Dolphin

Tursiops truncatus, commonly known as the common bottlenose dolphin (and in older literature simply as the bottlenose dolphin, a term now applied to the genus), is the most well-known species from the family Delphinidae.

Common bottlenose dolphins are the most familiar dolphins due to the wide exposure they receive in captivity in marine parks and dolphinaria, and in movies and television programs. T. truncatus is the largest species of the beaked dolphins. They inhabit temperate and tropical oceans throughout the world, and are absent only from polar waters. All bottlenose dolphins were previously known as T. truncatus, but recently the genus has been split into two, T. truncatus and T. aduncus. Although this species has been traditionally called the bottlenose dolphin, many authors have used the name common bottlenose dolphin for this species since a second bottlenose dolphins species, the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, was described. The dolphins inhabit warm and temperate seas worldwide. Considerable genetic variation has been described among members of this species, even between neighboring populations, and so many experts believe multiple species may be included within T. truncatus.