The dolphin, known as one of the most sympathetic, fun and intelligent mammals in the animal kingdom, belongs to the odontocete family of cetaceans, which means that, in addition to being a mammal adapted to aquatic life, it has teeth instead of teeth. Baleen characteristic of other types of cetaceans, as in the case of whales.
Do you want to know more information about what dolphins eat and where they live? Keep reading the following Green Ecologist article and we will explain it to you!
What do dolphins eat?
In the first stage of their life, dolphins feed solely from breast milk, which has the fats, nutrients and proteins necessary for the little one to grow and develop until reaching adulthood, in which it will be separated from its mother in search of its own food.
The dolphins, in their Adult stage, are carnivorous animals, which means that they base their diet on meat. However, the choice of its prey depends mainly on the oceanic region that it inhabits, although it also varies depending on the species of dolphin in question. Thus, while some species of dolphins favor small fish such as the cod, herring or mackerel, some others prefer squid, cephalopods and crustaceans.
Those larger dolphins, such as the killer whales, they feed on marine mammals, seals, sea lions, penguins, turtles and even gray whales.
Generally, the amount of food a dolphin consumes daily corresponds to the amount 10% of your body weightThus, a dolphin with an average weight of 200 kg will need to eat approximately 20 kg of fish every day, while larger species such as the killer whale will need around 500 kg of meat per day.
In addition, the percentage of fat, protein and nutrients provided by each prey must be taken into account, since, while mackerels or herring have high amounts of fat, squid hardly account for this sustenance, and therefore, they should be consumed in greater quantity.
How dolphins hunt
For the search, capture and hunt for food the dolphins they use different methods, which, due to their ingenuity, do not leave any of the species on the seabed indifferent:
- By means of the echolocation, a technique in which the animal emits a sound, so that, when it reaches a solid object, it produces a bounce known as an “echo” that allows it to calculate distances, they are able to guide themselves and even determine the size of their prey in depths of up to 50 meters where there is hardly any light.
- The grazing, is a frequently used technique in which dolphins cooperate, so that while some of them surround a school of fish in order to limit their space and prevent their escape, one of them intrudes on the bank and feeds on them, while the rest continue swimming around to prevent them from dispersing.
- Aquaplanning, consists of dragging their prey into shallow waters, such as the shores of beaches, where the fish can hardly move easily and thus be able to devour them. A similar technique is to create a mud curtain to prevent your victim from escaping.
- Killer whales use other types of more aggressive methods, such as hit the ice banks to unbalance their prey and cause them to fall into the sea or poke fish with their tails to stun them.
Where and how do dolphins live
Dolphins are social animals that they live in family groups known as pods. The care and protection established in these social groups is another proof of their amazing intelligence, given that they are benevolent and compassionate in the care of sick and injured species, as well as protective in the case of pregnant females and are even capable show learning behaviors and transmission to their offspring, cases in which the mothers teach the young to use tools, specifically, they show them how to cover their snouts with sponges to avoid damaging their snouts when looking for food.
Regarding their habitat, we must know that dolphins found in all oceans existing in the world, establishing their distribution based on the availability of resources, as well as the subspecies to which they belong.
Two major groups stand out, the marine dolphins and the oceanic dolphins, which include the vast majority of known species. In this way, it is known that some species such as the bottlenose dolphin inhabit all the warm and temperate seas and oceans of the planet, avoiding only the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. Other species prefer temperate seas, such as the striped dolphin, or the gray dolphin, the latter being located in deeper areas, full of canyons and steep areas, while orcas are located in cold areas far from the equator.
There is, in turn, a third special group in which they are found freshwater species that inhabit the mouths of rivers and river courses. However, this fact does not occur in all rivers, although it is common to find it in some regions of India (Ganges) and South America (Amazon). For example, in the Amazon we find pink dolphins, which are in danger of extinction.
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