Behaviour
Both species are highly gregarious. They move in pods of several hundred individuals and sometimes congregate in groups of 3000. The groups may also contain Dusky Dolphins and Pilot Whales (in the south) and Pacific White-sided Dolphins (in the north). These dolphins are some of the fastest swimmers (in excess of 40 km/h). They can by turns become very boisterous and breach and tail-slap or become very quiet and almost undetectable at sea. At high speed they can leap up to 7 metres across the ocean's surface in a graceful bouncing motion.
The species will generally avoid boats, but bow-riding has been recorded on occasion.
No strandings have been recorded for the Northern species. There has been one recorded instance of 77 Southern Right Whale Dolphins stranding on Chatham Island.
Read more about this topic: Right Whale Dolphin
Famous quotes containing the word behaviour:
“... into the novel goes such taste as I have for rational behaviour and social portraiture. The short story, as I see it to be, allows for what is crazy about humanity: obstinacies, inordinate heroisms, “immortal longings.””
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)