Common Bottlenose Dolphin - Description

Description

The common bottlenose dolphin is grey in color and may be between 2 and 4 m (6.6 and 13 ft) long, and weigh between 150 and 650 kg (330 and 1,400 lb). Males are generally larger and heavier than females. In most parts of the world the adult's length is between 2.5 and 3.5 m (8.2 and 11 ft) with weight ranges between 200 and 500 kg (440 and 1,100 lb). Newborn calves are between 0.8 and 1.4 m (2 ft 7 in and 4 ft 7 in) long and weigh between 15 and 30 kg (33 and 66 lb). The dolphins have a short and well-defined snout that looks like an old-fashioned gin bottle, which is the source for their common name. Like all whales and dolphins, though, the snout is not a functional nose, which has evolved instead into the blowhole on the top of their heads. Their necks are more flexible than other dolphins' due to five of their seven vertebrae not being fused together as is seen in other dolphin species.

Read more about this topic:  Common Bottlenose Dolphin

Famous quotes containing the word description:

    As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)