dolphin: Quick Facts

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Last updated

Oct. 25, 2026

News •

Dolphins hunt with sponges to stop prey making a clean getaway • Oct. 24, 2026, 1:00 AM ET (The Telegraph)

Photos and Videos

bottlenose dolphins

Illustration of a common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) swimming, with a faint silhouette of a scuba diver in the background for scale. Measurement bars show the dolphin is about 2 meters, or 6.6 feet, long.

Illustration of a Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) with a distinctive black and white pattern, shown above the faint silhouette of a scuba diver for scale. Measurement bars indicate the dolphin's length of about 1.5 meters, or 4.9 feet.

A bottlenose dolphin swims at the water's surface, holding a large bailer shell with its rostrum inside the shell opening in Great Sandy Marine Park, Queensland.

mammal: dolphins jumping

Map of northern South America showing the distribution ranges of three river dolphin species. The Amazon River dolphin range is shaded green, covering much of the Amazon basin across Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. The Orinoco River dolphin range is shown in yellow, limited to the Orinoco basin in Venezuela and Colombia. The Bolivian river dolphin range is marked in purple within central Bolivia. The Araguaian boto's range is shown in orange along the Araguaia and Tocantins rivers in Brazil

A dolphin on a background of graph paper, with a blue line chart trending downwards and four types of fish surrounding it.

Learn how dolphins use echolocation to detect any object

Observe social interactions of bottlenose dolphins at Scandola Nature Reserve on the coast of Corsica, also home to crabs and lobsters and other marine life

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