OVERVIEW
Bottlenose dolphins send messages to one another in different ways. They squeak and whistle and use body language—leaping as high as 20 feet (6 meters) in the air, snapping their jaws, slapping their tails on the surface of the water, and even butting heads. Dolphins also produce high frequency clicks, which act as a sonar system called echolocation (ek-oh-low-KAY-shun). When the clicking sounds hit an object in the water, like a fish or rock, they bounce off and come back to the dolphin as echoes. Echolocation tells the dolphins the shape, size, speed, distance, and location of the object. Bottlenose dolphins also have a sharp sense of hearing. Scientists believe that the sounds travel through the dolphin's lower jaw to its inner ear and then are transmitted to the brain for analysis.
SCIENTIFIC NAME
Tursiops truncatus
FAMILY NAME
Delphinidae
ENDANGERED STATUS
LEAST CONCERN
CLASSIFICATION
Mammal
LIFE SPAN
20 to 40 years
DIET
Carnivore
HABITAT
Ocean
Range
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