#dolphins

[catseye-among-aggies]

Exuberant gratitude for an act of kindness. A true sign of emotional intelligence!

[sugargrim3]

Tiktok is now officially banned for me, and I remembered abt my tumblr blog, so here's some orca art

[spearxwind]

I think it's sad that most people always think of bottlenoses as the "classic dolphin" since its the one that's always used for shows, and always think of dolphins as just straight grey when in reality there's so many varieties with so many different amazing patterns

Look at the common dolphin! They have a gorgeous X pattern and even some dull yellow/gold!!

Hourglass dolphins have gorgeous white streaks

Spinner dolphins have really pretty banding as well, AND they have a really sleek cute silhouette!

The atlantic spotted dolphin!!! Theyre spotted!!!!!!

and the pantropical spotted too!!

Dusky dolphins have a gorgeous airbrush look going on like straight out of a 2000s fantasy illustration

Striped dolphins sure have stripes!! How cool!!

And these I've shown you aren't even all of them at all, there are so many of them:

There's so so so many different types of dolphins people dont know about this isnt even all of them and some are SO gorgeous and underrated because people just dont know they exist so I'm here to fix that

[autisticexpression2]

"Dolphins are evil" is just a reactionary backlash to years of earnestly believing dolphins were all benevolence and rescuing sailors only to find out they can be dangerous and violent like any other large wild animal.

"Sharks are nice" is a similar phenomenon in the opposite direction. Pop culture portrays sharks as malevolant killing machines who crave human flesh, so when people realize they're just animals who don't attack people any more than other predators, they overcompensate into thinking you can just swim with great whites with no danger.

The reality, of course, is that both dolphins and sharks are large wild animals who should be approached with caution and respect if at all. It's probably best for you and the animal to admire them from a safe distance.

"dolphins are completely evil" I actually don't think we should assign human morality to animals with no concept of law or civilisation with an intelligence roughly equating to that of a toddler

[victusinveritas]

[scipunk]

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

[aestum]

(by Peter Thomas)

[acti-veg]

‘While bats can only sense the outer shapes and textures of their targets, dolphins can peer inside theirs. If a dolphin echolocates on you, it will perceive your lungs and your skeleton. It can likely sense shrapnel in war veterans and fetuses in pregnant women. It can pick out the air-filled swim bladders that allow fish, their main prey, to control their buoyancy.

It can almost certainly tell different species apart based on the shape of those air bladders. And it can tell if a fish has something weird inside it, like a metal hook. In Hawaii, false killer whales often pluck tuna off fishing lines, and “they’ll know where the hook is inside that fish,” Aude Pacini, who studies these animals, tells me. “They can ‘see’ things that you and I would never consider unless we had an X-ray machine or an MRI scanner.”

This penetrating perception is so unusual that scientists have barely begun to consider its implications. The beaked whales, for example, are odontocetes that look dolphin-esque on the outside—but on the inside, their skulls bear a strange assortment of crests, ridges, and bumps, many of which are only found in males.

Pavel Gol’din has suggested that these structures might be the equivalent of deer antlers—showy ornaments that are used to attract mates. Such ornaments would normally protrude from the body in a visible and conspicuous way, but that’s unnecessary for animals that are living medical scanners.’

-Ed Yong, An Immense World

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Learning anything about marine mammal training will make you re-evaluate so much of your relationship with your own pets. There is so much force involved in the way we handle domestic animals. Most of it isn’t even intentional, it just stems from impatience. I’m guilty of it myself!

But with the exception of certain veterinary settings where the animal’s health is the immediate priority, why is it so important to us that animals do exactly what we want exactly when we want it? Why do we have to invent all these tools and contraptions to force them to behave?

When a whale swam away from a session, that was that. The trainer just waited for them to decide to come back. If they flat out refused to participate in behaviors, they still got their allotment of fish. Nothing bad happened. Not even when 20-30 people were assembled for a procedure, and the whale chose not to enter the medical pool. No big deal. Their choice and comfort were prioritized over human convenience.

It’s almost shocking to return to domestic animal medicine afterwards and watch owners use shock collars and chokers and whips to control their animals. It’s no wonder that positive reinforcement was pioneered by marine mammal trainers. When you literally can’t force an animal to do what you want, it changes your entire perspective.

I want to see that mindset extended to our domestic animals.

[coconutpalms]

[islandmusic]

やさしい思い出🐬˖ ࣪⊹

[adequately]

たくさん持っていくよ〜⋆⸜

[snototter]

An orca (Orcinus orca) breaches off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, USA

by Guy Schmickle

[youre-dreaming-302]