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Bottle Nose Dolphins
Bottle-nose Dolphins

Topic Paragraph: The bottle-nose dolphin, or its scientific name, tursiops truncates, is a beautiful marine animal that swims gracefully through the water. They are very intelligent, one of the most intelligent out of all marine animals. They get there name from its bottle shaped snout.

Appearance: The bottle-nose dolphin is an average of eight to ten feet long, and weighs around 400 to 500 pounds on average. It has a streamlined body, perfect for swimming, and a large grey fin on its back. They are a greyish colour but lighter on the bottom, and there skin is very smooth and feels like rubber. They have a fair bit of blubber on their stomach and it has no hair on its body at all. They also have very unusual patterns of bone density.

How They Swim: The bottle-nose dolphin’s body is very narrow, like a bullet, helping them swim a lot faster. They have three sets of fins, also helping them swim. They swim at an average of 18 – 22 mph moving their body up and down to move, they are very powerful creatures.

Reproducing System: The female bottle-nose dolphins are sexually receptive during a large part of the year and are generally responsible for initiating courtship and breeding behaviour. A female dolphin can potentially have a calf every two years, but calving intervals generally average three years or more. When the calf is born it is usually nursed under-water, close to the surface for and average of 18 months or more.

Diet: Bottle-nose dolphins have a very big appetite, eating a wide variety of food like fish, squid, and crustaceans, such as shrimp. They also swim in groups called pods, unless they get lost.

Location: Bottle-nose dolphins usually live in a place called the pelagic zone as well as harbours, bays, lagoons, gulfs and estuaries.

Conclusion: Bottle-nose dolphins are beautiful creatures, they have a good shaped body to help them swim, they have blubber to keep them warm in their environment, they aren’t fussy about their food so it is hard to die of starvation, and the are fast swimmers, so they can easily catch their prey. They are truly amazing marine animals.