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How Did the Bottle Nose Dolphin Get Its Name?

The bottlenose is the most well-known species of dolphin. Found worldwide in coastal waters and seen by millions of people in captivity at aquariums and dolphinariums, bottlenose dolphins have appeared in movies, children's books and television shows such as "Flipper." Although it is difficult to trace the origins of their common name describing the dolphin's bottle-shaped beak, the specie's scientific naming dates back to 1821.

Scientific Naming
- Tursiops truncates is the bottlenose dolphin's scientific name.
  
  G. Montague, a member of the Wernerian Natural History Society, first described the bottlenose dolphin and recorded its scientific name of Tursiops truncates in 1821 in the Scottish society's memoirs, according to the World Register of Marine Species. "Turisio" is Latin for dolphin and "ops" is Greek for appearance, so tursiops means dolphinlike. Turnacatus, also a Latin word, means truncated which may refer either to the dolphin's beak or its flattened teeth.
Other Common Names
- As the bottlenose dolphin is found throughout the world, it has many common names including porpoise, black porpoise and cowfish in English. The water mammal is call a dauphin souffleur or grand dauphin in French and delfín mular or pez mular in Spanish.
Bottlenose Dolphins Name Themselves
- Vincent Janik of the Sea Mammal Research Unit, University of St. Andrews in Scotland, heads a study on dolphin whistles that discovered that bottlenose dolphins develop their own signature whistles soon after they are born, in effect naming themselves. Janik and the team of researchers suggest bottlenose dolphins use these customized whistles to find and identify individual dolphins within their pod.
Some Bottlenose Facts
- Bottlenose dolphins often join together into herds to make hunting easier.
  
  Bottlenose dolphins most commonly live in temperate and tropical waters in pods of about a dozen animals. Pods of dolphins may join up with other pods to form herds of more than a few hundred animals. The herd works together by swimming in smaller and smaller circles to "herd" fish to make hunting easier. In addition to their whistles, bottlense dolphins make clicking sounds called echolocation, which help them navigate without running into objects and to identify schools of fish. Their large brains and the ease which they are trained lead researchers to believe dolphins are highly intelligent.

Animals & Science