The etymology of dolphin leads us to the Latin word delphin, a term derived from the Greek delphÃs. A dolphin is an aquatic mammalian animal that is part of the cetacean group.
Dolphins are piscivorous: they eat fish. There are more than thirty species of this animal that is usually about three meters long and has a single nasal opening.
The body of the dolphin is dark in its upper part and whitish in the lower sector. It has a large head, a large mouth with teeth on both of its jaws, an elongated snout, and small eyes.
It is important to mention that members of the Delphinidae family live in salty waters, usually tropical or temperate. The so -called river dolphins, instead, belong to the Platanistoidea family group.
Intelligence is one of the most outstanding characteristics of dolphins . It is common for them to interact with people, often being trained to participate in different types of shows. They are even used by armies for mine detection and other tasks.
We must not forget that it is not easy to compare the intelligence of two species, and even less so if they are two as different as dolphins and humans, since each one has its own way of acquiring knowledge, of communicating and living in society and Their physical characteristics also vary, among which we can highlight their speech apparatus, their respiratory system and their extremities.
The intelligence of the dolphin must focus on moving skillfully through the water, in a way that we could not even begin to try; on the other hand, ours supposes a displacement by land, making use of our legs, something that they cannot do. In the same way we could contrast our ways of communicating, getting food and even playing; neither of the two parties should seem less intelligent than the other, since their roles on the planet are very different, and nature does not intend us to compete, but rather to complement each other.
To communicate with other specimens of its species, a dolphin can use jumps, dances and sounds. These animals also use echolocation to navigate: they make sounds and then interpret the echo that is produced.
It is known that the dolphin is a social animal, which shares its life with several individuals with whom it forms a family. In areas where food is plentiful, each family can have more than a thousand members. This species can create very close social bonds, which are compared to what we call friendship, and this has been deduced from various situations; for example, it is common for a dolphin to help an injured companion to the surface. The human being has also verified that each individual has his own name, which others can pronounce to call him.
It is known by the name of hybridization the crossing of two different species, which is produced by the mating of two individuals that belong to the same genus or, at least, to the same family. Speaking specifically of the members of the Delphinidae family, there are hybrids called balfines, which are not found in nature but have been artificially obtained in a Hawaiian water park, where they were created by mixing female bottlenose dolphins and male false killer whale
Dauphin, on the other hand, was a noble title given to the crown prince of the King of France. This distinction existed between the middle of the fourteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century. Today, by extension, the successor who chooses a personality to follow in his footsteps is known as a dolphin.