Mother dolphin feeding baby
How Do Dolphins Breastfeed Underwater? – North American Nature
I was lucky enough to be in Bali recently on a dolphin watching trip. I wanted to know how dolphins breastfeed their young underwater, so I asked one of the guides. His answer left me with some questions, so I looked into this further when I got back to shore.
Dolphins have inverted nipples inside mammary slits. When the calf is ready to feed, they dive underneath the mother and nudge the mammary slits. The nipple is released, and the mother feeds milk to the calf that rolls its tongue into a u-shaped tube.
I found this interesting and wanted to find out some more information. If you want to find out more, please read on.
If you or someone you know loves dolphins then check out these great dolphin gifts on Amazon by clicking here
How Do Dolphins Breastfeed Underwater?All mammals have evolved and developed different, unique mechanisms that enable them to survive in their environments. In the case of dolphins, they have their mechanisms of breastfeeding underwater. Whales are surrounded by water, and breastfeeding in this kind of environment is not as easy as it would be for a land mammal.
Dolphins have two mammary slits on their underside, which have an inverted nipple inside. The nipples are not the same as terrestrial mammals that have protruding nipples, and young dolphins can not feed at any time as land mammals can.
Whales often swim close to the shore. Find out why here
When the dolphin calf is ready to feed, they dive underneath the mother and nudge the mammary slits. This signals to the mother that the calf is ready to feed. This also works as a way to stimulate the mammary slit to release the nipples.
Whereas the young of land mammals will regulate the amount of milk they take from their mother, marine mammals are different.
Dolphin calves do not control how much milk they take, but the mother does. The mother squirts their milk from their teats into the calf’s mouth.
The young calf wraps its mouth around the teat, rolling its tongue into a u-shaped tube. The rolled tongue is then pressed onto the upper palate and placed around the nipple.
This ensures that the milk is channeled directly into the mouth and ensures that none of the fluid is lost into the water. The dolphin’s mammary glands have muscles that first contract, then shoot out milk directly into the mouth.
During the first few weeks after birth, the mother will lay on her side to help the young find the mammary glands. After the first few weeks, the calf will lay on its side to drink the milk, and the mother slows down their swimming.
One of the main reasons dolphins can successfully breastfeed underwater is due to the milk’s consistency. Whale milk has an unusually high-fat content.
The high-fat content makes the milk thick enough to pass through the water. High-fat concentration in the milk is important because the adult female whale can eject liquid into the calf’s mouth without dissolving into the water around their lips.
If you want to know how whales breastfeed underwater, I have written an article which you can find here.
Do Dolphins Produce Milk?Dolphins are sea mammals and possess the typical characteristics of all mammals. This means that they have mammary glands and produce milk to feed their young.
With all species of dolphins, the calves require plenty of milk for them to grow and stay healthy. Generally, a baby dolphin consumes milk every 20 minutes, 24 hours a day. As they get older, this happens less frequently.
Dolphins have been seen to nurse their young for up to four and a half years, generally with a minimum of two years.
Did you know there are 16 species of dolphins in North America? Find out what they are here.
Do Dolphins Have Nipples?
Dolphins do have nipples, but they are not extended on the outside as in humans. Dolphins spend their entire life inside the water, so nipples and breasts outside would not be the best place for them.
Dolphin nipples are enclosed within folds of skin referred to as mammary slits.
The milk of a dolphin has a very thick consistency. The thickness is attributed to the high-fat concentration that can reach between 108 to 180 gm per liter. The milk is white in appearance with a yellowish tinge and a creamy consistency.
The taste is oily and lacks sweetness, and has a fishy odor. (Please don’t ask me how I know!!)
How Long Do Dolphins Breastfeed?Baby dolphins need the milk to survive and to grow. Once they are large enough to survive without the milk, then they will change to a diet of mainly fish.
Most dolphins will stay with their mothers for at least three years. Some calves will nurse up to the age of six, or even ten in some cases. Calves can grow extremely fast in their first year, reaching seven times as large as when firstborn due to the milk’s high-fat content.
Dolphins give birth to their next calf only when the previous calf has been fully weaned. Due to this, dolphins will only have another calf after at least three years.
Dolphins do not reproduce very often, which allows plenty of time for the calves to grow fully and increase their survival chances. The mother will lactate and produce milk until the calf has been weaned.
Dolphins swim differently to fish and whales. Find out more here
What is the Importance of Milk to the Young Dolphins?
Similar to land mammals, milk is a vital part of a young dolphin’s existence. Baby dolphins need milk for healthy nourishment and growth.
Dolphin calves survive on milk until they are ready to wean. Without milk, dolphins have low survival rates, starving to death. A newborn dolphin consumes large amounts of milk in a day and is their sole source of food at this time.
The milk is rich in nutrients required for the baby dolphin to grow and thrive. The liquid is packed with healthy fats that provide energy calf.
Other nutrients are required to boost the immune system, support bone development, and ensure that the brain functions properly.
Dolphins use echolocation. Find out more in this article I wrote
Breastfeeding creates a bond that is unbreakable between the mother and her calf. This bond is important for the development of the baby whale.
Research has proved that the relationship between marine mammals and their parents is crucial for their survival. Marine mammals living in captivity have a shorter lifespan than their counterparts in the wild. In captivity, dolphins cannot nurture naturally as they would in the wild.
Dolphin milk contains a high concentration of fatty acids. The fat in the milk helps develop blubber. Blubber is a thick layer of fat under the skin of dolphins.
Blubber develops as the dolphin grows. Since dolphins spend all of their time underwater, they need to prevent heat loss and keep their body temperatures constant.
Blubber acts as an insulating layer against the coldness of the water.
The high-fat content from the milk enables the thick insulating fat layer to develop.
If you or someone you know loves dolphins then check out my favorite dolphin gifts on Amazon.
Recommended Books
Guide to whale watching in North America : USA, Canada, Mexico. Where to go, what to see.
Handbook of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises Of the World
How Do Dolphins Nurse? | Sciencing
Updated May 02, 2018
By Rachelle Dragani
Thanks to their intelligence, playful demeanor and uncanny ability to leap through the sea, dolphins are among the most popular ocean animals. However, there’s a key difference between them and their fish friends. Dolphins are mammals, which mean that they nurse their young. The logistics are different from those of the mammals that nurse on land, but dolphin mothers have evolved in fascinating ways to provide their young with the nutrients they need to grow.
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)
To prevent waste and maintain a streamlined marine body, dolphins use inverted nipples and voluntary milk ejection to efficiently nurse their young.
Underwater Mammals
Dolphins are one of several types of marine mammals. Some marine mammals, such as otters and polar bears, are better suited to life on land even though they spend some time swimming. Others, such as sea lions and seals, have adapted to life mostly underwater but still head back to land for certain jobs like mating and molting.
Dolphins and whales represent the type of marine mammals who spend their entire lives underwater, which makes them fascinating cases of evolution. Over thousands of years, they developed characteristics to equip them to a life at sea, such as streamlined bodies to cut back on drag and flippers to help them swim. Despite these adaptations, they still exhibit two of the main characteristics of mammals: They breathe air and nurse their young.
Dolphin Anatomy
A mother dolphin’s anatomy has to be different from the body of a mother that nurses on land. A mammal such as a cow or a pig has visible nipples protruding from its body that the baby can attach to whenever it feels like it.
The baby doesn’t have to worry about latching with a perfect seal because it’s not that big a deal if a little milk dribbles out. Underwater, though, dolphin bodies must stay streamlined to prevent drag, and they can’t risk lactating and losing all their milk to the surrounding water.
A female dolphin has two inverted nipples that sit within its mammary slits, near its belly. When a calf is ready to nurse, it places its beak into the slit to form a firm latch all the way around the inverted teat. With that stimulation, the mother voluntarily ejects milk. This allows her to control the flow of milk, so it goes straight to her calf and not anywhere else.
At some point, both mom and baby dolphin need to surface for air, so the feeding practice is quicker than it is for most land mammals. For that reason, dolphin milk is dense with nutrients and richer and fattier than the milk of most mammals on land.
Nursing Mothers
For the first few weeks of a calf’s life, a mother dolphin may ease its young into nursing by flipping to her side a bit.
After a while, though, calves learn to nurse as the mother swims, although the mother often slows its pace while the calf feeds.
A mother may nurse her calf for up to three years, usually weaning her youngest when she is pregnant with another. Scientists believe that the nursing process is an important part of a young dolphin’s life and a way to strengthen the bond between mother and child.
90,000 How dolphins feed their young with milk. Amazing and interesting facts about whales and dolphins. Why Dolphins Don't Freeze UnderwaterOn this day, back in 1982, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted for a complete ban on commercial whaling, which went into effect in 1986.
Today, LifeGuide has prepared the most interesting facts about these wonderful marine mammals.
There are many species of cetaceans, but there are 3 main classifications: ancient whales, baleen (or toothless) and toothed whales, which include dolphins.
1. The largest animal in the world is the Blue Whale.
Its length can reach up to 33 meters, and its weight exceeds 120 tons.
2. In one second, the whale inhales and exhales about two thousand liters air.
3. All baleen whales have larger females than males.
4. The heart of a large Blue whale alone weighs about a ton - it is the largest among animals that exist in the world.
5. A whale eats 150 to 230 kilograms of fish a day.
6. Whales, like people, feed their young with milk from the mammary glands, hence the name - mammals.
7. A baby whale gains about 100 kg every day by drinking about 380 liters of milk per day.
8. Outwardly, whales and dolphins look like large fish, but they breathe not with gills, but with lungs.
9. Cetaceans can stay in the water for up to 40 minutes, and sperm whales for up to 1.
5 hours.
10. During exhalation, in large whales, the air is pushed out with such force that the loud sound of the fountain can be heard even at a great distance in calm calm weather.
11. Cetaceans have almost no sense of smell. The sense of touch, unlike the sense of smell, is very well developed. However, the most important way for whales to transmit information is through hearing. Toothed whales have especially acute hearing.
12. The whales sing. Yes, yes, the sounds through which they communicate resemble human singing in their melodiousness. The shortest "aria" lasts 6 minutes, the longest - about 30 minutes.
13. Researchers suspect that dolphins may also use their "vocal abilities" not only for echolocation, but also to stun or paralyze prey while hunting.
14. Sperm whales are considered quite dangerous whales. When wounded, they are capable of sinking an entire whaling ship.
15.
The teeth of sperm whales, most often, are located only on the lower jaw. Female sperm whales always have fewer teeth than males.
16. Sperm whales grow throughout their lives, usually males are almost twice as large as females.
17. Because whales, like dolphins, need to come up to the surface occasionally to breathe, only half of their brains can sleep at any given time.
18. In terms of body-to-brain size, a dolphin has a much larger brain than a chimpanzee. The brain of an adult representative weighs about 1 kg 700 g, despite the fact that in humans it weighs 1 kg 200 g. In addition, the dolphin has twice as many convolutions. This explains J.
19. According to the latest science, dolphins have a huge vocabulary of up to 14,000 different signal sounds, and they also have self-awareness and empathy to help people.
20. Dolphins recognize each other by the “names” they have at birth. Experiments proved that the same dolphin responded to the recorded sound that signaled the name.
21. Whales and dolphins are able to play with each other.
22. Dolphins, as a rule, do not live alone. They have a complex social structure, and a wide range of emotions, including a sense of humor.
23. Sharks, no matter how predatory they are, try to avoid the company of dolphins.
24. The only known albino humpback whale on the planet was seen near Australia.
25. Dolphins by simple communication and games help children with cerebral palsy and autism to recover. Dolphins perfectly understand the condition of autistic patients, and they manage to reach out to their consciousness. This method of treatment is called dolphin therapy.
26. Dolphins sometimes have mass suicides. This is justified by the fact that dolphins feel the earth's magnetic field well, and sometimes their "sensor" fails and they go astray and are washed ashore.
27. There are fighting dolphins. They are used for military purposes and are trained to detect underwater mines, rescue sailors after the destruction of their ship, and even, according to unconfirmed reports, destroy submarines using the "kamikaze" method.
28. Dolphin scientists have noticed a fascinating fact: male dolphins give their potential mates gifts in the form of "bouquets" of seaweed.
29. And, finally, the main enemy of cetaceans is man!
Hello friends! Since you are reading this article, you are interested in learning something new about dolphins. Today you have a great opportunity to get to know them better. The dolphin is a smart animal, they even treat people, as I wrote in.
Let's see who are dolphins and what they are. Like you, like me, they belong to the class of mammals. About eleven million years ago, the ancestors of dolphins decided to get out of the water, setting off to comprehend the expanses of the earth. Looking around, they were horrified. That is why the dolphins had to return to the expanses of the water surface. These beauties have teeth, being warm-blooded, feed their cubs with milk.
Habitat
Wikipedia says they prefer the seas and oceans as their habitat.
There is practically no such place where these mammals have not settled in our world. From the Red Sea to the northern reservoirs. Further - more: sometimes these animals choose rivers. The bottle-nosed species or the small bottlenose dolphin are more fond of tropical water.
How do they come into being?
Do you know how dolphins are born? The bottlenose dolphin bears a baby for about a year. He is born tail first. The eyes of the cub are immediately open, and the senses are as developed as possible. Moreover, the barely born dolphin already has enough coordination to follow in the footsteps of the mother, who helps to rise to the surface. Then follows the first breath in the life of a baby dolphin. This trusting relationship between a baby dolphin and its mother lasts approximately 3 to 8 years.
A mother dolphin is feeding her baby dolphin.
Breathtaking speed
I don't know about you, but for me the following fact was a real revelation.
Dolphins develop amazing speed. As for the bottlenose dolphins, they develop from four to eleven kilometers per hour. The caudal fin, the strongest part of the body, helps in this. If there is such a need, the speed can develop up to 32 kilometers per hour! The body has an ideal shape that allows you to move freely in the water.
Dolphins do not face the concept of resistance. The body of a dolphin has been covered with scars since childhood, because these beauties have a uniquely smooth skin that helps them swim in the water column. Just admire, watch this video, how dolphins accompany the ship:
Dolphin breathing
Another interesting fact from the life of these animals is connected with ... breathing! They breathe air. Despite the absence of gills (not like fish), they have lungs and a unique blowhole located on the upper part of the body. With it, dolphins, like whales, make all kinds of sounds. Bottlenose dolphins can hold their breath for more than seven and a half minutes! But under water they can spend no more than a quarter of an hour - otherwise they are at risk.
Gastronomic preferences
Dolphins prefer to eat different types of fish and squid. It depends on the region where the friend lives. For example, river dolphins are real gourmets. They don't care what they eat. The teeth and jaws are not sufficiently developed to make chewing movements. They swallow the fish whole.
Dolphins and people: who is smarter?
I was also very interested to know: is it a myth that dolphins are more intelligent than humans? The brain of a bottlenose dolphin is the same size as that of a human. However, the elephant is four times more developed! The main role is given to the ratio of the brain and spinal cord. For example, in a dolphin it is forty to one, while in a human it is fifty to one. Cats are five to one, but this is not an indication that they are stupid.
As far as one can tell, the ratios between humans and dolphins are close. But these animals live in a completely different environment. It requires other abilities: hearing, vision and other factors without which it is impossible to survive under water.
Dolphins know how to heal people, in addition, read about it here.
Dolphin sizes
Are you wondering if a dolphin is a fish or...? In terms of size, these comrades are much larger than fish. Dolphins can be quite large. For example, the killer whale can be considered the largest of the family. Its length at birth is up to two and a half meters, amazing! Over time, the figure will reach six meters. But speaking of bottlenose dolphins, they are born, hardly a meter in length. It is rare that a bottlenose dolphin will grow, exceeding 2.5 meters.
What sounds do dolphins make?
Also, I wondered why dolphins make all sorts of sounds. I was curious to find the answer, which I am happy to share with you today. As mentioned above, the blowhole helps to "talk" to them. Here and whistle - for communication with each other, and sounds of a pulsating type, indicating an emotional state, like anger or excitement, and clicks to determine echolocation. That is, direction.
The animal world never ceases to amaze.
Dolphins know how to have fun!
Do you think it's true that dolphins like to play with each other? From time to time you have to watch how these animals, jumping out of the water, get up something! Incredible acrobats. Swimming back and forth, playing with the waves, they make you hold your breath. All this has a logical explanation. Jumping out, dolphins determine where the school of fish has passed. Games make up a fairly significant part of the life of these individuals.
They like to touch pieces of coral, algae, communicate with their own kind, birds and even turtles. Riding the waves, dolphins have fun! These are their games, friends. By the way, watch this funny video of a dolphin playing with a cat, it always warms my heart after watching it:
Why don't dolphins freeze underwater?
Finally, let's find out why dolphins, being warm-blooded, do not freeze in water. Their body temperature is 36.6 degrees.
In the northern seas, animals need to keep warm. Water, which conducts heat up to twenty-five times more efficiently than air, allows you to freeze much faster than in air.
Why do dolphins perform such miracles?! This is due to the large layer of fat under the skin. They can control their circulation and metabolism. This makes it possible to maintain normal body temperature, according to Wikipedia.
And finally, I will have a small request for you, I recently found this video below on the Internet, which tells and shows how dolphins live in dolphinariums, look and write in the comments what do you think about this?
photo:Teruhide Tomori
Dolphins are perfectly adapted to life in sea water. They have a perfectly designed body with a compacted tail. They have 210 pieces in their mouth; swallow food without chewing. Dolphins have lungs but no gills like . Unfortunately, the dolphin cannot breathe automatically, so when the dolphin is sleeping, one part of the brain is awake and the other part is resting with the dolphin.
Speaking of the brain, its weight is almost the same as that of humans. They have a four chambered heart. These mammals distinguish between tastes, that is, bitter, salty, sweet.
photo: chatallot
They spend their whole life in sea water, they never encounter fresh water. Therefore, they have to drink salt water, but the kidneys help them cope with this situation. The kidneys of dolphins are much larger than those of terrestrial mammals, because the kidneys constantly have to excrete a lot of salt.
Dolphins feed their babies with milk. The birth process is interesting. The calf appears tail first, after the appearance of the head, the mother pushes the dolphin to the surface for the first breath. Together with his mother, he lives up to 2-3 years.
photo: Domenico Savi
Communication is carried out using gestures, that is, moving the body or tail. In addition to gestures, they communicate with sounds (whistling, clicking).
It has long been known that dolphins are very good-natured and curious.
Often they “communicate” with people by swimming up to them.
photo: Carlos Silvestre
Dolphins are very smart and hardworking, they just get in touch with people and are easy to train. If the dolphin is allowed to look in the mirror, then he will understand that it is him. They have a very well developed sense of help, they will always help their own if they need it. When a female gives birth to a baby dolphin, the rest of the flock protects them from predators and helps the female if necessary.
Dolphins are considered one of the most intelligent animals on the planet, as well as the most caring parents.
Female dolphins are caring, giving birth to one cub about once a year, they do not leave him during the period of childhood and adulthood. Dolphins feed, protect their children, teach them to adapt to the world around them, to get food. The first months of marine mammal life are interesting. This is how dolphins raise their young.
Baby Dolphin
The sizes of dolphins at birth are different.
Some are born only 50-60 cm long, others can reach a third of their mother. When childbirth begins, the dolphin actively moves, often opening its mouth and arching its body. Seeing these manifestations, girlfriends gather around, providing assistance and, if necessary, protecting.
As soon as the cub is born, it is rushed to the surface of the sea. There, the lungs expand and fill with fresh air. Since the baby, being in the mother's womb, has accumulated a decent fat reserve, in the first hours it is between water and air, resembling a float. The dolphin moves in an upright position, occasionally flipping its front fins.
A baby dolphin remembers its mother by her voice. And this is not surprising, because the dolphin, as soon as she gives birth, whistles loudly, amplifying her usual voice 10 times. It is difficult for a cub to confuse a parent with other adult females.
For the first months, the dolphin does not leave her baby, who, wanting to be fed, makes a shrill cry, similar to a human.
Unlike sushi cubs, dolphins hardly sleep during the first month. Together with him, his mother is also awake, forced to watch and help her child vigilantly. Newly born children do not know how to hold their breath for a long time and they need to rise to the surface every 3 minutes. Only in the second month of life, dolphins plunge into a short sleep. Little by little, adult sleep norms are reached - dolphins sleep an average of about 8 hours.
Cubs gain weight quite quickly - about a quarter of a kilogram per day. Such a good correction provides frequent feeding. Eating dolphins is a natural process, they cannot choke, because the airways are separated from the esophagus.
The baby dolphin does not leave its mother throughout the first year. He circles in a small, two or three meters circle, the center of which is a dolphin. By educating, a parent can punish her restless child.
Somewhere up to a year and a half, the cub feeds on mother's milk, eventually switching to fish.
By playing and imitating a close example, dolphins learn to get food and communicate.
Raised exclusively by females. Dolphins, constituting a separate male clan, meet with representatives of the female community only in the baroque period.
Newborn dolphins, unlike the cubs of other mammals, from the first minutes after birth are very adapted to independent life. The baby is born able to swim, see, hear, exchange sound information with the mother and even distinguish her from other dolphins in the flock.
It is also interesting that even before the birth of a dolphin, females gather in a separate group and help the pregnant mother in every possible way. Moreover, during childbirth, females surround the dolphin, thus creating a kind of protective circle.
Dolphins are highly developed creatures, their behavior is in many respects similar to human, and in some cases they even surpass humans. So, for example, in the first weeks of life, a dolphin itself obediently follows its mother.
Scientists suggest that dolphins are characterized by some innate behaviors. Such abilities help the cub survive in a hostile environment. Behavioral features of newborn dolphins have been observed, such as a special place near the mother: behind, slightly to the side of the dorsal fin, which provides the newborn with the safest position. If another female from the flock swims nearby, then the baby dolphin arranges itself so as to be protected from both sides by their fins. Another feature of the behavior of newborns is that the dolphin never lags behind the mother and does not swim away from her. Moreover, even if the mother swims very fast, the dolphin still adapts to her rhythm.
However, while females are trying to protect young offspring in every possible way, males are not very friendly towards young dolphins. That is why newborn dolphins lend themselves to strict upbringing. All attempts to swim up to other adult dolphins are immediately stopped by the mother. In dolphinariums, there were even cases when mothers punished their naughty children.
Most often, the female pressed the cub to the bottom of the pool with a rostrum (the so-called nose of dolphins) and held it in this position for about a minute, after which it released. It may sound rather cruel, but such behavior is very justified. After all, adult males can not only drive away an annoying baby, but also leave serious damage on the body of a dolphin, up to bites.
As mentioned above, a baby dolphin never swims far from its mother, but there are times when a baby dolphin is still lost. In such situations, the baby swims closer to the surface of the water in the place where he was with his mother for the last time. He swims in circles at high speed and whistles continuously. Thus, the mother easily finds him.
It is also interesting that after the birth of a dolphin, a female from the flock usually joins the mother and continuously helps her in caring for the newborn and protecting it.
Many scientists are still amazed at the intelligence of dolphins.
As you can see, these animals not only have the ability to perfectly learn various tricks and acrobatic numbers. Dolphins even have their own language and dialects, a hierarchy in the flock and even social relations.
| In the distant Pacific Ocean, where the Lord settled many different fish and sea animals in the depths of cold waters, this amazing story happened.
The scientific vessel called "Ekvator" set sail from the Vladivostok pier. It was beautiful sunny and calm weather. The sun cast its bright reflections on the mirror surface of the ocean. The ship's crew, led by an experienced captain, was in high spirits. Everyone stood up for a prayer service for a safe trip and a rich catch of fish. The task was to go to the herring.
Leaving the harbor, the ship headed to the south-east, where, as expected, at this time it was possible to come across schools of herring.
We sailed to the destination for several days. Finally, the captain gave the order to go adrift and set up nets for catching fish. The sailors obediently began to lower the nets from the ship into the water. Everything went well, and before dark the work was completed. The team had dinner, prayed and went to bed.
The next morning we began to choose networks. The catch was small: shrimp, oysters, various fish, apparently strayed from their schools, and a few small sharks came across. Suddenly, one of the sailors pulled out of the net a small dolphin, still a cub, slippery, wet, blue-gray with a white spot on its chest. He looked frightened, he could not even resist.
The sailor, a very young guy - it was his first trip to the open ocean - did not know anything about dolphins and began to stroke this cute baby and play with him. He did not know that, swallowing air, a dolphin could die. The captain saw this and, with noticeable anxiety, ordered the sailor to immediately release the baby dolphin overboard.
As soon as the team had time to choose the nets, they noticed a huge flock of dolphins on the starboard side. She quickly approached the ship. Dolphins surrounded the ship, and then such a performance began that no one could have imagined it if they had not seen it with their own eyes.
These amazing, always smiling animals began to perform tricks that they were only capable of: circling on their side, hitting the water with their pectoral fin, on their backs, clapping their fins like hands, demonstrating jumps in such a way that, when immersed in water, all the team was doused with small cold sprays.
And one trick amazed even the captain himself, an experienced sailor who had seen a lot in his lifetime. Several dolphins suddenly jumped out of the water to their full height, stood on the water on their tails and began to simultaneously turn in one direction. Now that was a spectacle! The whole team applauded the artists.
Having finished their unusual performance, the dolphins gathered in a flock and slowly headed southwest. The captain gave the order to weigh anchor and go after them. The dolphins began to swim faster, and the ship increased the speed of the engines, afraid to lose sight of them. They walked like this for about two hours, until they saw that the guides, having slowed down, began to circle in one place. Having made several circles on the ocean surface, the flock disappeared from the eyes of the team. The captain gave the order to drift and throw the nets where the dolphins had just been.
The sun was almost gone below the horizon when the sailors finished their work. As always, having prayed, the crew went to their cabins to rest. Thus ended this day full of God's comforts.
In the morning, as soon as dawn broke, the sun appeared from behind the horizon, everyone gathered on the deck. We tried to see what the catch is. To everyone's surprise, the nets could not even lift, they were so heavy.
I had to cut them to pull them out piece by piece. Excellent large herring shone there, and in such quantity that the team could well return to the port: the task was completed. Dolphins led the fishermen to flocks of herring.
Later, the sailors asked experts how these wonderful animals knew that the team needed to catch herring, why the dolphins showed exactly the type of fish that was needed, because at the same time schools of horse mackerel and mackerel passed nearby. Experts could not find an answer. However, everything is simple: the Lord directs His creation with His Omnipotence.
Thus, dolphins thanked people for saving the life of their cub.
After that, the captain, who had served on fishing boats for many years, told his crew many wonderful stories about dolphins helping people. The Lord created these animals to serve man. Often, on their backs, they delivered survivors from sunken ships to shore, saving their lives, protecting fishermen from sharks. They especially love children and are the first to come to the rescue if trouble happens to those at sea. And they do all this selflessly, just like that, because the Lord created them that way, they obey their Creator in everything.
And we must hasten to do good, because the Lord created us for good and commanded us to love our neighbors and help them, and if they do something good to us, then be sure to thank God and neighbor.
A grateful heart is close to God.
Smiling dolphins
Perhaps there is no other living creature that would be so friendly to people as a dolphin.
Baby dolphins are born tail first, not head first like humans. But dolphins are mammals because a mother dolphin feeds her baby with milk like a small child. The very process of feeding a little dolphin is very interesting. Take a plastic water bottle in your hands, make a hole in the cork and press the plastic walls with your hand. You will see that water flies out in a fountain through a hole in the cork. This is how dolphins feed their young.
Animals that live on land and also feed their babies with milk, of course, do not use this injection. But dolphins live in the sea, and mother's milk may not get into the baby's mouth, but dissolve in water. To prevent this from happening, dolphin moms do exactly as we told, and not otherwise. Do you think dolphins themselves could come up with and create such a system for injecting milk directly into the mouth of a cub? Of course no! After all, it is very difficult: the dolphins would have to change a lot in their bodies.
Humans and dolphins breathe almost identically. Dolphins have both a nose and a mouth for this, however, they are located a little differently. Here is a dolphin about to dive: he, like a man, must take in air, hold his breath, and only then go under water. If the dolphin is going to emerge, he will have to let the air out of his lungs. That's what people do.
Probably many have seen dolphins in the sea. These animals quickly glide through the water among the waves, and sometimes swim in a race with ships and boats, as if in competition. All dolphins are excellent swimmers. It contributes to their skill that the skin of the dolphin is very smooth and slippery. In addition, the nose of dolphins is designed in such a way that it helps them to sort of push the water apart and swim at high speed. People have long paid attention to the noses of dolphins and began to make almost the same noses on their ships.
Did you know that dolphins can't smell and see almost nothing? Do you know why the dolphins are not at all upset by this? The thing is that the Lord rewarded them with amazing hearing. Dolphins hear sounds from many, many kilometers away. Moreover, dolphins have a special organ in their body, similar to a sonar device, which greatly helps them to hunt. It happens like this: a dolphin makes a sound that, by the way, the human ear cannot even hear, this sound propagates through and under water like waves. If this sound wave hits an obstacle or interference, it is reflected from them and returns back.
The dolphin hears this return sound and realizes that there is a school of fish or a rock ahead. But the sound reflected off the rock is different from the sound hitting the fish, so the dolphin knows exactly what lies ahead. Moreover, he understands how far this obstacle is.  .
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He immediately obeyed and carefully lowered the baby into the water so as not to damage his fins. The dolphin immediately disappeared into the barely noticeable waves of the ocean abyss. Then the captain ordered: "choose all networks." The sailors were perplexed: after all, the fishing had just begun, the nets had never been chosen so quickly and had not gone to another place, but the captain repeated the order and added: “Soon you will see what will happen.” 
Some jumped one over the other, which amused the sailors a lot. 
If you have ever seen dolphins, of course, you yourself understood that this is one of the sweetest and kindest creatures of God. 
It is clear that only the Lord could adapt the body of a dolphin mother to feed dolphins right in the water. 
Therefore, the more the nose of a boat or yacht looks like the nose of this marine animal, the faster such a vessel can sail. 
