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Bottle-nosed Dolphin
Also called: Porpoise on our Atlantic Coast.
Images coming soon.
- Length
- 9 feet.
- Description
- Stout, forehead sloping, beak short and depressed, back fin about midway between the nose and the tip of the tail. Colour plumbeous gray above, lighter on the sides, shading gradually into pure white on the under surface. Teeth 22 in each jaw.
- Range
- North Atlantic coasts from Maine to Florida and through the Gulf to Texas, also coasts of Europe.
This is the most familiar cetacean of our Atlantic seaboard, and few are the visitors to our seaside resorts who have not seen a school of "porpoises" passing up or down the coast just beyond the breakers, their arched backs and pointed fins rising at regular intervals above the surface of the waves and disappearing again, as the animal continues on its undulating course. Occasionally with a stronger leap than usual the powerful fluked tail is seen above the water and sometimes the entire body is exposed.
Like other members of the family, porpoises are sociable and always gather in herds or "schools" of varying size and in this way no doubt they pursue with better effect the mackerel, herring and other fishes upon which they feed.
Often at sea porpoises will associate themselves with some passing ship and for miles at a time plunge along close to her side, perhaps taking the vessel for some gigantic member of their own tribe. I have watched them travelling in this manner for long intervals and they kept close to the prow, as if piloting the ship on its way and apparently with no thought of the scraps or refuse which they might have secured had they been following in our wake.
Several species of similar habits occur in the north Atlantic which are described below, while others are found in the other seas.