National Dolphin Day

The 14th day of April is reserved for the appreciation and celebration of the ocean’s most sweet mammals: the dolphins!

The dolphins are a group of cetacean mammals and are closely related to the whales and the porpoises. Their size ranges from 1.25 meters to 10 meters in length.
Dolphins are carnivorous aquatic mammals and their diet consists mostly of fish and squid. They prefer to swim in shallow sea water.
Dolphins always stay in groups. The male dolphin is called a bull, the female a cow, and a baby dolphin is naturally a calf. The group of dolphins is called a school or a pod.

Here are some facts about dolphins that maybe you didn’t know:

• The Dolphins are born with the tail first.
• Dolphins have a built-in sonar: dolphins use echolocation to navigate through the dark water and to find food.
• The Scottish bottlenose dolphin is the biggest in the world.
• Dolphins have clever central cooling and heating system, it is called a blubber and it is a layer of fat.
• Dolphins give each other names ????
• There are also river dolphins, that swim in big rivers such as the Amazon river.
• Dolphins are highly sociable animals. If there is enough food, they can live in pods with up to 1000 members.
• A recent study says that dolphins can develop Type 2 Diabetes.

How to celebrate this day?

Watch a documentary about dolphins for sure ???? If you have an Aqua park nearby, go visit a dolphin show and see them up close. Follow the hashtags #NationalDolphinDay and #ILoveVeterinary and see how other people in the world honor the dolphins.

Happy National Dolphin Day!