AVELAR,+MARICSA

=DOLPHINS= By: Maricsa Avelar

=TABLE OF CONTENTS=

INTRODUCTION
====I am doing my research on dolphins. I picked dolphins because they are very cute animals, well at least for me.I had alot of choises about what to do my research on but i was interested in dolphins since i was a very small girl. So i took this opertunity to do my research about them.I had always wondered alot about sea animals but i always had more attention to the dolphins. It was just hard for me to understand how they did things like how they jumped and from where they breath.I leared alot from doing this research and hopefully u will understand it.====

WHAT IS A DOLPHIN AND WHERE ARE THEY AFTEN FOUND.
====A dolphin is a sea mammel.Dolphins are thought to be joyful,playful, and friendly creatures to humans but can be deadly when protecting their young.Dolphins are also thought to have excellant eyesight and extraordinarily good hearing.The dolphin has been considered one of the most intelligent creatures on the planets.All dolphins are toothed whales belonging to the sub-order.Dolphins found in worldwide in temperate and tropical waters,and also mid ocean.But most of the time they are usually found in coastal areas.====

===A dolphin only breathes through a single blowhole. Their single blowhole is on their dorsal surface of their head. The dolphin hols its breath while below water. Dolphins open their blowhole and begin to exhale just befor reaching the surface of the water. When the dolphin is at the surfaceit guickly inhales and relaxes the muscular flap to close it. During its resperation a dolphin exchanges 80% or more of its lung.Compare to humans we exchange only about 17% of the lung air with each breath.===

===Dolphins eat a variety of different foods. Some of them eat fish such as mackerel,herring,and cod. While some other dolphins eat squid. Bigger dolphins may eat different marine mammals, such as sea lions or sea turtles.How much the dolphins eat depend on what type of fish or squid they eat.Some of the fish dolphins eat, such as mackerel or herring have alot of fat in them.Wich means that if dolphins eat these fish they will get alot of energy.A 250 kg dolphin will typically eat between 10kg and 22.5 kg of fish every day.===

===A dolphin could grow really big.Dolphins are three m (ten ft). Some dolphins could grow up to weight for-hundred pounds. Even though the biggest type of dolphin is the killer whale. Killer whales calves are about a feet long at birth and they can grow over 20 feet long!! Compare a bottlenose dolphin is about 3 and 1/2 at birth and could grow up to 8 or 9 feet long. As you could see a dolphin could be one of the biggest seas mammals.===

===Compare to other animals dolphins could die at a very short age.The maximum age for a dolphin is between 40 and 50 years.The average age that a dolphin could getcan be calculated from the Annual Survival Rate.Which means the percentage of animals alive at a certain point, that is still alive one year later.In Sarasta Bay, the dolphin populationhas been measured to be about 0.961. This yields a life expectancy of about 25 years.And for the population in the Indian/Banana River area, it's between 0.908 and 0.931. Which yields a life expectance between 10.3 and 14 years. So their actual life expectancydiffers per region.===

===Dolphins could swim for long distances.Dolphins swimming speed and duration are cloesly tied. When a dolphin swims fast its probability of staying under water is a slow speed.Compare when a dolphin swims slow it could last for long periods of time under water.Most dolphins routinely swim at speed of about five-eleven kph (three to two mph). Dolphins can reach brusts of speed up to twenty-nine - thirty-five kph(eighteen-tweenty-two).Dolphins could go over 20 mph if they try hard.===

===Dolphins could jump really high. They could jump even higher then ten feet. People have seen dolphins jump as high as 4.9 m (16 ft) from the surface from the water. Could you beleive that now thats high!!! Dolphins have seen jumped that high and landing on their back or sides. As you could see dolphins like to jump alot its one of the ways dolphins play. Most of the dolphins jump at least more then 50 times a day. That shows us that dolphins are very energetic sea mammals.===

===Dolphins could become sexually mature at a very small age.Well at least the female dolphins could get mature at a very small age. Female dolphins usually become sexually mature at the age of 5 to 12 yearswhen they reach about 2.3 m (7.5 ft).Compare to the male dolphins they become sexuallp maturewhen they reach the about 2.4 to 2.6 m (8-8.5 ft), at about 10 to 12 years. Just befor the dolphins mate, the male dolphins rubs and nuzzles a female. And most of the time thats the age dolphins get sexually mature.===

===Dolphins death could be caused by alot of things. Disease and parasitism are two of them. As in any animal population, a variety of disease and parasitism could cause dolphins death. Some dolphins suffer from viral, bacteria, and fungal infections. Which they may develope stomach ulcers, skin disease, tumors, heart disease, urogenital, disorders, and respiratory disorders. Most parasites that typically affect dolphins include tapeworms, roundworms, and flukes. In 1987 and 1988, over 700 dolphins washed up dead on the east cost of the United States. Scientists originally believed that the dolphins deaths were triggered by a naturally occuring "red tide" toxin.===