Dolphin

Individual species may employ a number of methods of hunting:. Purportedly drunk elephants raided yet another Indian village again on December 2002 [5]. There are no known reports of cannibalism amongst dolphins. An attack on another Indian village occurred in October 1999, and again locals believed the reason was drunkenness, but the theory was not widely accepted [4]. The larger species, especially the orca, are capable of eating marine mammals, even large whales. Although locals reported that nearby elephants had recently been observed drinking beer which rendered them "unpredictable", officials considered it the least likely explanation for the attack [3]. Usually, the prey is swallowed whole. In December 1998, a herd of elephants overran a village in India.

Some dolphins may take crustaceans. At least a few elephants have been suspected to be drunk during their attacks. 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. Since male elephants are ostracized from their herds when they become sexually mature, their sex hormones can lead to aggressive behaviour. Dolphins are predators, chasing their prey at high speed. There is also one other cause of elephant rage that is not the result of human activity. Since dolphins spend most of their time below the surface in the wild, just tasting the water could act as a sense of smell. They cite the following reasons:.

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. Humans have mistreated elephants for the past century, and they are suffering from a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The dolphin's sense of touch is also well-developed. So many elephants have been killed just because of human cruelty and greed. Hearing is also used for echolocation which seems to be an ability all dolphins have. In the last ten minutes of the episode Explorer: Elephant Rage, the scientists formed this theory:. 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. To sum up the episode, scientists discover that elephants kill 300-400 humans per year, and they set out to find why.

Most dolphins have acute eyesight both in and out of the water and their sense of hearing is far above our own. The National Geographic Society¹ aired a program describing a disturbing trend of elephants killing humans on the National Geographic Channel on Sunday, June 5, 2005. Compare also: whale behavior. A common adage is that "Elephants never forget", and later scientific evidence seems to support they have good memories. She most likely died of self induced asphyxiation in the presence of her trainer Richard O'Barry.[1]. To break free all the elephant has to do is erase that limiting thought for in fact he is free to go.". 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. Abiding to this conditioning the elephant is trapped for life.

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. Yet the trainer continues to tie the elephant to the tree with the same rope he’s always used, for the simple reason that the elephant has the concept in his mind that the rope is stronger than him. In captivity, many dolphins seem to have committed suicide. A couple of years pass and the elephant is now an adult weighing several tons. The technology to use sponges as mouth protection is not genetically inherited but a taught cultural behaviour. Learning that, the elephant doesn’t try to escape and accepts his confinement. Other than with primate simians, the knowledge to use a tool is mostly handed over only from mothers to daughters. The young elephant tries his hardest to escape, he pulls and wriggles and jumps and crawls yet the rope just tightens and to the tree it remains tied.

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. "From when an elephant is a baby they tie him for certain periods with a rope to a tree. In May 2005, researchers in Australia discovered a cultural aspect of dolphin behaviour: Some dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) teach their offspring to use a tool. The following is taken from a newsletter. Such military dolphins, however, drew scrutiny during the Vietnam War when rumors circulated that dolphins were being trained to kill Vietnamese Skin Divers. It is called the "elephant trap". The military has employed dolphins for various purposes from finding mines to rescuing lost or trapped persons. Another more effective method is practiced in the Indian Subcontinent which is far less physical and brutal and more mental.

Dolphin/Human interaction is also employed in a curative sense at places where dolphins work with autistic or otherwise disabled children. Corea's elephants are also used to entertain tourists and haul logs. Dolphins trained to perform in front of an audience have become a favorite attraction in dolphinaria, for example SeaWorld. African elephants are now being used for (photo) safaris. Because of their high capacity for learning, dolphins have been employed by humans for any number of purposes. Because of their more sensitive temperaments, they require different training methods than Asian elephants and must be trained from infancy hence Corea worked with orphaned elephants. This leads to them staying with injured or ill fellows for support. African elephants are more temperamental than Asian elephants, but are easier to train.

However, the animals can establish strong bonds between each other. In Botswana, Uttum Corea has been working with African elephants and has several young tame elephants near Gaborone. Membership in schools is not rigid; interchange is common. African elephants have long been reputed to not be domesticable, but some entrepreneurs have succeeded by bringing Asian mahouts from Sri Lanka to Africa. They also use ultrasonic sounds for echolocation. Elephants have also been used as mounts for safari-type hunting, especially Indian shikar (mainly on tigers), and as ceremonial mounts for royal and religious occasions, whilst Asian elephants have been used for transport and entertainment, and are common to circuses around the world. The individuals communicate using a variety of clicks, whistles and other vocalizations. Throughout Siam, India, and most of South Asia elephants were used in the military for heavy labor, especially for uprooting trees and moving logs, and were also commonly used as executioners to crush the condemned underfoot.

In places with a high abundance of food, schools can join temporarily, forming an aggregation called a superpod; such groupings may exceed 1000 dolphins. A large elephant in full charge could cause tremendous damage to infantry, and cavalry horses would be afraid of them (see Battle of Hydaspes). Dolphins are social animals, living in pods (also called "schools") of up to a dozen animals. The Carthaginian general Hannibal took elephants across the Alps when he was fighting the Romans, but brought too few elephants to be of much military use, although his horse cavalry was quite successful; he probably used a now-extinct third African (sub)species, the North African (Forest) elephant, smaller than its two southern cousins, and presumably easier to domesticate. There are many stories of dolphins protecting shipwrecked sailors against sharks by swimming circles around the swimmers. This use was adopted by Hellenistic armies after Alexander the Great experienced their worth against king Poros, notably in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid diadoch empires. 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. War elephants were used by armies in the Indian sub-continent, and later by the Persian empire.

They are also famous for their willingness to occasionally approach humans and playfully interact with them in the water. It is generally more economical to capture wild young elephants and tame them than breeding them in captivity. Frequently dolphins will accompany boats, riding the bow waves. Therefore elephants used by humans have typically been female, war elephants being an exception, however: as female elephants in battle will run from a male, only males could be used in war. They have even been seen harassing other creatures, like seabirds and turtles. However, elephants have never been truly domesticated: the male elephant in his periodic condition of musth is dangerous and difficult to control. Play is a very important part of dolphins' lives and they can often be observed playing with seaweed or playfighting with other dolphins. Seals found in the Indus Valley suggest that the elephant was first domesticated in ancient India.

Perhaps they just do it for fun. Elephants have been working animals used in various capacities by humans. They could also be communicating to other dolphins to join a hunt, or attempting to dislodge parasites. [2]. 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. Without tusks, elephant behavior could change dramatically. the spinner dolphin). Elephants use their tusks to root around in the ground for necessary minerals, tear apart vegetation, and spar with one another for mating rights.

Dolphins often leap above the water surface, sometimes performing acrobatic figures (e.g. The effect of tuskless elephants on the environment, and on the elephants themselves, could be dramatic. See the Dolphin intelligence article for more details. [1] It is possible, if unlikely, that continued selection pressure could bring about a complete absence of tusks in African elephants, a development normally requiring thousands of years of evolution. 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. Tusklessness, once a very rare genetic abnormality, has become a widespread hereditary trait. 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. The propagation of the absent-tusk gene has resulted in the birth of large numbers of tuskless elephants, now approaching 30% in some populations (compare with a rate of about 1% in 1930).

A typical statement would be that dolphins are roughly as intelligent as a two-year-old human. African ivory hunters, by killing only tusked elephants, have given a much larger chance of mating to elephants with small tusks or no tusks at all. Dolphins are widely believed to be amongst the most intelligent of all animals. The harvest of elephants, both legal and illegal, has had some unexpected consequences on elephant anatomy as well. See individual species articles for details. As scientists learn more about nature and the environment, it becomes very clear that these parks may be the elephant's last hope against the rapidly changing world around them. It is often combined with lines and patches of different hue and contrast. Today there are still many problems associated with these parks and reserves, but there is now little question as to whether or not they are necessary.

The basic coloration patterns are shades of gray with a light underside and a distinct dark cape on the back. When confined to small territories, elephants can inflict an enormous amount of damge to the local landscapes. 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 more often an elephant wandered off its reserve, the more trouble it got into, and the more chance it had of being shot by an angry farmer. The dolphin brain is large and has a highly structured cortex, which often is referred to in discussions about their high intelligence. This did little to belie their image as a crop-raiding pest. Teeth can be very numerous (up to 250) in several species. Some animals died as a result, while some, like the elephants, just trampled through the fences.

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. Once a fence was erected, many animals found themselves cut off from their winter feeding grounds or spring breeding areas. The head contains the melon, a round organ used for echolocation. however, when most parks were created, the boundaries were drawn at the man-made borders of individual countries. Dolphins have a fusiform body, adapted for fast swimming. For example, elephants range through a wide tract of land with little regard for national borders. See evolution of cetaceans for the details. Of course, there were many problems in establishing these reserves.

They entered the water roughly 50 million years ago. It was to be the first of many. Modern dolphin skeletons have two small rod shaped pelvic bones thought to be left-over hind legs. It was deproclaimed and reproclaimed several times before it was renamed and granted national park status in 1926. Dolphins, along with whales and porpoises, are descendants of land-living mammals, most likely of the Artiodactyl order. Kruger National Park in South Africa first became a reserve against great opposition in 1898 (then Sabi Reserve). See also wolphin. Africa's first official reserve eventually became one of the world's most famous and successful national parks.

There has also been a reported hybrid between a beluga and a narwhal. The increased number of herbivores ravage the local trees, shrubs, and grasses. Dall's Porpoises and Harbour Porpoises have hybridized in the wild. As large predators are hunted, the local small grazer populations (the elephant's food competitors) find themselves on the rise. Blue Whales, Fin Whales and Humpback Whales all hybridize in the wild. An elephant needs an average of three hundred pounds of vegetation a day to survive. In the wild, bands of males of one dolphin species have been observed to mate with lone female Spinners. They cannot hide, and it takes many years for an elephant to grow and reproduce.

In the wild, Spinner Dolphins have sometimes hybridised with Spotted Dolphins and Bottlenose Dolphins. Larger, long-lived, slow-breeding animals, like the elephant, are more susceptible to overhunting, than other animals. In captivity, a Bottlenose Dolphin and a Rough-Toothed Dolphin produced hybrid offspring. As forests are reduced to small pockets, elephants become part of the problem, quickly destroying all the vegetation in an area, eliminating all their resources. This mating has since been repeated in captivity and a hybrid calf was born. Elephants need massive tracts of land because, much like the slash-and-burn farmers, they are used to crashing through the forest, tearing down trees and shrubs for food and then cycling back later on, when the area has regrown. In 1933, three strange dolphins were beached off the Irish coast; these appeared to be hybrids between Risso's Dolphin and the Bottlenose Dolphin. Floods and massive erosion are common results of deforestation.

They are sometimes called "blackfish":. The trees are responsible for anchoring soil and absorbing water runoff. Six animals in the family Delphinidae are commonly called "whales" but are strictly speaking dolphins. As larger patches of forest disappear, the ecosystem is affected in profound ways. . Lacking the massive tusks of its African cousins, the Asian elephant's demise can be attributed mostly to loss of its habitat. The family Delphinidae is the largest in the Cetacea, and relatively recent: dolphins evolved about 10 million years ago, during the Miocene. Another threat to elephant's survival in general is the ongoing cultivation of their habitats with increasing risk of conflicts of interest with human cohabitants.

They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and all are carnivores, mostly eating fish and squid. The threat to the African elephant presented by the ivory trade is unique to the species. Most species weigh about 50 to 200 kg (110 to 440 lb). Elephants' foraging activities help to maintain the areas in which they live:. 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). During this season, known as musth, a bull will fight with almost any other male it encounters, and it will spend most of its time hovering around the female herds, trying to find a receptive mate. There are almost 40 species of dolphin in 17 genera. However, during the breeding season, the battles can get extremely aggressive, and the occasional elephant is injured.

Orcas and some related species belong to the Delphinidae family and therefore qualify as dolphins, even though they are called whales in common language. Ordinarily, the smaller, younger, and less confident animal will back off before any real damage can be done. Porpoises (suborder Odontoceti, family Phocoenidae) are thus not dolphins in our sense. Most of the bouts are in the form of aggressive displays and bluffs. In this article, the second definition is used. The dominance battles between males can look very fierce, but typically they inflict very little injury. It can mean:. It is usually the older bulls, forty to fifty years old, that do most of the breeding.

The word is used in a few different ways. The less dominant ones must wait their turn. "a 'fish' with a womb". Only the most dominant males will be permitted to breed with cycling females. The name is from Ancient Greek δελφίς delphis meaning "with a womb", viz. The males spend much more time than the females fighting for dominance with each other. Dolphins are aquatic mammals related to whales and porpoises. These groups are called bachelor herds.

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. While males do live primarily solitary, lives, they will occasionally form loose associations with other males. One of the mates of the ship is named Akeakamai, in honor of the real-life dolphin from Louis Herman's animal language research. Eventually, days become weeks, and somewhere around the age of fourteen, the mature male, or bull, sets out from his natal group for good. In the book Startide Rising by author David Brin, the spaceship Streaker is manned by neo-dolphins (dolphins genetically engineered to match human intelligence). As he gets older, he begins to spend more time at the edge of the herd, gradually going off on his own for hours or days at a time. In one scene, the dolphins' misbehavior elicits the following quote from Zissou: "Son of a bitch, I'm sick of these dolphins.". The life of the adult male is very different.

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. They remain very aware of which local herds are relatives and which are not. 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. When a group gets too big, a few of the elder daughters will break off and form their own small group. Mike and the 'Bots then quickly apoligize. Most immediate family groups range from five to fifteen adults, as well as a number of immature males and females. While doing so, the SOL gets blasted by a ship that turns out to be piloted by dolphins. In addition to encountering the local males that live on the fringes of one or more groups, the female's life also involves interaction with other families, clans, and subpopulations.

In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Devil Fish," Mike and the 'Bots mock dolphins. The social circle of the female elephant does not end with the small family unit. Their logo depicts an aqua-colored bottlenose dolphin wearing an American football helmet and jumping in front of a coral-colored sunburst. Adult males, on the other hand, live mostly solitary lives. An American National Football League (NFL) team is named the Miami Dolphins. These groups are led by the eldest female, or matriarch. 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. the females spend their entire lives in tightly knit family groups made up of mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunts.

Ecco the Dolphin stars in a series of games for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Gear, Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. The social lives of male and female elephants are very different. 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. Elephants live in a very structured social order. See Races from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 60% of that food leaves the elephant's body undigested. Their story is told in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. An adult elephant can consume 300 to 600 pounds (140 to 270 kg) of food a day.

However, their behavior was misinterpreted as playful acrobatics. Because elephants only digest 40% of what they eat, they have to make up for their digestive system's lack of efficiency in volume. 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. Their diet is at least 50% grasses, supplemented with leaves, twigs, bark, roots, and small amounts of fruits, seeds and flowers. 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. Elephants are herbivores, spending 16 hours a day collecting plant food. 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. There are unconfirmed rumours of three other hybrid elephants born in zoos or circuses, all of were said to have been deformed and did not survive.

Foraging - A recent study reported that wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops) in Western Australia use sponges to forage in the sea bed for food.[2]. It is preserved as a mounted specimen at the British Natural History Museum, London. Stunning - using the echolocation melon, very loud clicks are directed at prey, stunning them. Sadly the calf died of infection 12 days later. Fish Wacking - where the dolphin uses its fluke to strike the fish, stunning it and sometimes sending it clear out of the water. The body was African in type, but had an Asian-type centre hump and an African-type rear hump. Corralling - where fish are chased to shallow water where they are more easily captured. The forehead was sloping with one dome and two smaller domes behind it.

Herding - where a superpod will control a school of fish while individual members take turns plowing through the herd, feeding. The wrinkled trunk was like an African elephant. Short-finned Pilot Whale, Globicephala macrorhynchus. "Motty", the resulting hybrid male calf, had an African elephant's cheek, ears (large with pointed lobes) and legs (longer and slimmer), but the toenail numbers, (5 front, 4 hind) and the single trunk finger of an Asian elephant. Long-finned Pilot Whale, Globicephala melas. The pair had mated several times, but pregnancy was believed to be impossible. False Killer Whale, Psudoorca crassidens. Although hybrids between different animal genera are usually impossible, in 1978, an Asian elephant cow gave birth to a hybrid calf sired by an African elephant bull (the old terms are used here as this pre-dates current classifications).

Pygmy Killer Whale, Feresa attenuata. Many captive African elephants are probably generic African elephants as the recognition of separate species has occurred relatively recently. Killer Whale, Orcinus orca. The Forest elephant and the Savannah elephant can hybridise successfully, though their preference for different terrains reduces the opportunities to hybridise. Melon-headed Whale, Peponocephalia electra. There's also a potential danger in that if the forest elephant isn't explicitly listed as an endangered species, poachers and smugglers might thus be able to evade the law forbidding trade in endangered animals and their body parts. La Plata Dolphin (Franciscana), Pontoporia blainvillei. This reclassification has important implications for conservation, because it means where there were thought to be two small populations of a single endangered species, there may in fact be two separate species, each of which is even more severely endangered.

Genus Pontoporia