Cutco

The cutlery brand and the sales tactics were parodied in the episode I Married Marge of The Simpsons where young Homer tries selling Slashco knives. Individual species may employ a number of methods of hunting:. Cutco and its marketing arm, Vector Marketing, have been the subject of varied controversy. There are no known reports of cannibalism amongst dolphins. . The larger species, especially the orca, are capable of eating marine mammals, even large whales. Some features include what Cutco calls a "Double-D" edge (though it has teeth, it is not a serrated edge), ergonomic handles, and a "forever guarantee" that promies that "Cutco is the last set of knives you will ever have to buy.". Usually, the prey is swallowed whole.

All its knives are produced in Olean, New York, in the United States. Some dolphins may take crustaceans. Cutco has been in business since 1949. The dentition is adapted to the animals they hunt: Species with long beaks and many teeth forage on fish, whereas short beaks and lesser tooth count are linked to catching squid. Cutco is the name of a brand of cutlery and kitchen accessories sold via "in-home" demonstrations via personal referral. Dolphins are predators, chasing their prey at high speed. The handle is a highly-engineered, impact resistant material called Thermo-resin, which is a plastic material. Since dolphins spend most of their time below the surface in the wild, just tasting the water could act as a sense of smell.

Despite Cutco's claims, 440A can rust and stain, since the term 'stainless' means its stain resistant, not impervious to stains. However, they seem to lack a well-developed sense of smell, but they most likely can taste and do show preferences for certain kinds of fish. The blade is a high carbon stainless steel, type 440A instead of 154CM or AUS-34. The dolphin's sense of touch is also well-developed. Lamb studied over seven hundred pairs of hands to design his line of handles, originally intended for a variety of tools including garden tools and bicycles, but remained only on the Cutco line. Hearing is also used for echolocation which seems to be an ability all dolphins have. Mr. Though they have a small ear opening on each side of their head it is believed hearing underwater is also if not exclusively done with the lower jaw which conducts the vibrations to the middle ear via a fat filled cavity in the lower jaw bone.

Universal Wedgelock Handles, designed by industrial designer Thomas Lamb, were added to the Cutco line in 1952. Most dolphins have acute eyesight both in and out of the water and their sense of hearing is far above our own. Cutco knives can be sharpened free at any time under the Cutco forever guarantee. Compare also: whale behavior. Unlike many serrated knives, the Double-D edge can be resharpened. She most likely died of self induced asphyxiation in the presence of her trainer Richard O'Barry.[1]. The "Double D" edge is a recessed edge that will stay sharp for years. Probably one of the best known cases of dolphin suicide is that of a dolphin named Cathy, one of the bottlenose dolphins that performed in the television series Flipper.

Vector's sales tactics, which has been alleged to be unethical because of the encouraged use of friends and relatives to begin initial sales. They either do so by repeatedly slamming their head against the pool walls or other solid objects or simply by not coming up for air anymore. Each time their legal trouble revolved around allegedly fraudulent recruiting tactics, and each time Vector settled and promised not to mislead their recruits anymore [2]. In captivity, many dolphins seem to have committed suicide. Vector's employment tactics, specifically allegedly deceptive recruitment tactics.[1] Vector was sued by the Arizona Attorney General in 1990, ordered by the state of Wisconsin not to deceive recruits in 1994 and sued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in 1999. The technology to use sponges as mouth protection is not genetically inherited but a taught cultural behaviour. The arguable quality of Cutco's products (stamped blades instead of forged). Other than with primate simians, the knowledge to use a tool is mostly handed over only from mothers to daughters.

CUTCO products are marketed directly, by appointment only, to consumers in their homes. The animals break off sponges and put them onto their mouths thus protecting the delicate body part during their hunt for fish on the seabed. Over 700 manufacturing and administrative people are employed at the Alcas/CUTCO/Vector headquarters in Olean, N.Y. In May 2005, researchers in Australia discovered a cultural aspect of dolphin behaviour: Some dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) teach their offspring to use a tool. CUTCO has been purchased by more than 12 million customers. Such military dolphins, however, drew scrutiny during the Vietnam War when rumors circulated that dolphins were being trained to kill Vietnamese Skin Divers. The company also carries a line of cookware, sporting and pocket knives and garden tools. The military has employed dolphins for various purposes from finding mines to rescuing lost or trapped persons.

More than 100 kitchen cutlery products are sold under the CUTCO name, as well as a variety of kitchen gadgets, utensils and flatware. Dolphin/Human interaction is also employed in a curative sense at places where dolphins work with autistic or otherwise disabled children. In 2004 sales of CUTCO were $184 million. Dolphins trained to perform in front of an audience have become a favorite attraction in dolphinaria, for example SeaWorld. Because of their high capacity for learning, dolphins have been employed by humans for any number of purposes. This leads to them staying with injured or ill fellows for support.

However, the animals can establish strong bonds between each other. Membership in schools is not rigid; interchange is common. They also use ultrasonic sounds for echolocation. The individuals communicate using a variety of clicks, whistles and other vocalizations.

In places with a high abundance of food, schools can join temporarily, forming an aggregation called a superpod; such groupings may exceed 1000 dolphins. Dolphins are social animals, living in pods (also called "schools") of up to a dozen animals. There are many stories of dolphins protecting shipwrecked sailors against sharks by swimming circles around the swimmers. In return, in some cultures like in Ancient Greece they were treated with welcome; a ship spotting dolphins riding in their wake was considered a good omen for a smooth voyage.

They are also famous for their willingness to occasionally approach humans and playfully interact with them in the water. Frequently dolphins will accompany boats, riding the bow waves. They have even been seen harassing other creatures, like seabirds and turtles. Play is a very important part of dolphins' lives and they can often be observed playing with seaweed or playfighting with other dolphins.

Perhaps they just do it for fun. They could also be communicating to other dolphins to join a hunt, or attempting to dislodge parasites. Scientists aren't quite certain about the purpose of this behavior, but it may be to locate schools of fish by looking at above water signs, like feeding birds. the spinner dolphin).

Dolphins often leap above the water surface, sometimes performing acrobatic figures (e.g. See the Dolphin intelligence article for more details. Straightforward comparisons of species' relative intelligence are complicated by differences in sensory apparatus, response modes, and nature of cognition; furthermore, the difficulty and expense of doing experimental work with a large marine animal mean that even such tests as can meaningfully be done have still not been done, or have been carried out with inadequate sample size and methodology. However, experts in comparative psychology or animal cognition would be reluctant to make any such estimate, as quantitative comparisons of intelligence between species are notoriously difficult to make in principle.

A typical statement would be that dolphins are roughly as intelligent as a two-year-old human. Dolphins are widely believed to be amongst the most intelligent of all animals. See individual species articles for details. It is often combined with lines and patches of different hue and contrast.

The basic coloration patterns are shades of gray with a light underside and a distinct dark cape on the back. Their teeth are arranged in a way that works as an array or antenna focusing the incoming sound, making it easier for them to pinpoint the exact location of an object. The dolphin brain is large and has a highly structured cortex, which often is referred to in discussions about their high intelligence. Teeth can be very numerous (up to 250) in several species.

In many species, the jaws are elongated, forming a distinct beak; for some species like the Bottlenose, there is a curved mouth that looks like a fixed smile. The head contains the melon, a round organ used for echolocation. Dolphins have a fusiform body, adapted for fast swimming. See evolution of cetaceans for the details.

They entered the water roughly 50 million years ago. Modern dolphin skeletons have two small rod shaped pelvic bones thought to be left-over hind legs. Dolphins, along with whales and porpoises, are descendants of land-living mammals, most likely of the Artiodactyl order. See also wolphin.

There has also been a reported hybrid between a beluga and a narwhal. Dall's Porpoises and Harbour Porpoises have hybridized in the wild. Blue Whales, Fin Whales and Humpback Whales all hybridize in the wild. In the wild, bands of males of one dolphin species have been observed to mate with lone female Spinners.

In the wild, Spinner Dolphins have sometimes hybridised with Spotted Dolphins and Bottlenose Dolphins. In captivity, a Bottlenose Dolphin and a Rough-Toothed Dolphin produced hybrid offspring. This mating has since been repeated in captivity and a hybrid calf was born. In 1933, three strange dolphins were beached off the Irish coast; these appeared to be hybrids between Risso's Dolphin and the Bottlenose Dolphin.

They are sometimes called "blackfish":. Six animals in the family Delphinidae are commonly called "whales" but are strictly speaking dolphins. . The family Delphinidae is the largest in the Cetacea, and relatively recent: dolphins evolved about 10 million years ago, during the Miocene.

They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and all are carnivores, mostly eating fish and squid. Most species weigh about 50 to 200 kg (110 to 440 lb). They vary in size from 1.2 m (4 ft) and 40 kg (88 lb) (Maui's Dolphin), up to 9.5 m (30 ft) and 10 tonnes (the Orca). There are almost 40 species of dolphin in 17 genera.

Orcas and some related species belong to the Delphinidae family and therefore qualify as dolphins, even though they are called whales in common language. Porpoises (suborder Odontoceti, family Phocoenidae) are thus not dolphins in our sense. In this article, the second definition is used. It can mean:.

The word is used in a few different ways. "a 'fish' with a womb". The name is from Ancient Greek δελφίς delphis meaning "with a womb", viz. Dolphins are aquatic mammals related to whales and porpoises.

In the William Gibson short story Johnny Mnemonic and the film by the same name (starring Keanu Reeves), cyborg dolphins were used in war-time by the military to find submarines and, after the war, by a group of revolutionaries to decode encrypted information. One of the mates of the ship is named Akeakamai, in honor of the real-life dolphin from Louis Herman's animal language research. In the book Startide Rising by author David Brin, the spaceship Streaker is manned by neo-dolphins (dolphins genetically engineered to match human intelligence). In one scene, the dolphins' misbehavior elicits the following quote from Zissou: "Son of a bitch, I'm sick of these dolphins.".

In The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, marine researcher Zissou (played by Bill Murray) has trained reconaissance dolphins which apparently are temperamental and rarely follow their instructions. In seaQuest, Darwin the dolphin could communicate with English speakers using a vocoder, an invention that translated the clicks and whistles to English and back. Mike and the 'Bots then quickly apoligize. While doing so, the SOL gets blasted by a ship that turns out to be piloted by dolphins.

In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Devil Fish," Mike and the 'Bots mock dolphins. Their logo depicts an aqua-colored bottlenose dolphin wearing an American football helmet and jumping in front of a coral-colored sunburst. An American National Football League (NFL) team is named the Miami Dolphins. A book called The Music of Dolphins was written by Karen Hesse, about a girl who had lived with dolphins since the age of four.

Ecco the Dolphin stars in a series of games for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Gear, Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. After study at the Dolphins Plus research center in Key Largo, Florida, fantasy author Ken Grimwood wrote dolphins into his 1995 novel Into the Deep, including entire chapters written from the viewpoint of his dolphin characters. See Races from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Their story is told in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

However, their behavior was misinterpreted as playful acrobatics. In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, dolphins are the second most intelligent creatures on Earth (after mice) and tried in vain to warn humans of the impending destruction of the planet. The television show was based on a 1963 film, and remade as a feature film in 1996 starring Elijah Wood and Paul Hogan (actor), as well as a television series running from 1995-2000 starring Jessica Alba. The popular television show Flipper, created by Ivan Tors, portrayed a dolphin in a friendly relationship with two boys, Sandy and Bud; a kind of sea going Lassie, Flipper understood English unusually well and was a marked hero: "Go tell Dad we're in trouble, Flipper! Hurry!" The show's theme song contains the lyric no one you see / is smarter than he.

Foraging - A recent study reported that wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops) in Western Australia use sponges to forage in the sea bed for food.[2]. Stunning - using the echolocation melon, very loud clicks are directed at prey, stunning them. Fish Wacking - where the dolphin uses its fluke to strike the fish, stunning it and sometimes sending it clear out of the water. Corralling - where fish are chased to shallow water where they are more easily captured.

Herding - where a superpod will control a school of fish while individual members take turns plowing through the herd, feeding. Short-finned Pilot Whale, Globicephala macrorhynchus. Long-finned Pilot Whale, Globicephala melas. False Killer Whale, Psudoorca crassidens.

Pygmy Killer Whale, Feresa attenuata. Killer Whale, Orcinus orca. Melon-headed Whale, Peponocephalia electra. La Plata Dolphin (Franciscana), Pontoporia blainvillei.

Genus Pontoporia