32 Beach L i fe Nature Dolphins
DOLPHINS FROM THE NORTHERN GULF OF MEXICO
The Life + Times of Our Favorite Sea Mammal
They roam every ocean of the world , from the high latitudes of the Arctic and Southern Ocean to the warmest equatorial waters . Eversocial , they live and travel in pods and hunt in teams . As cetaceans , they are related to the most ethereal and majestic creatures of the sea — the orca , the baleen , and toothed whales . All breathe through blowholes . All are related to terrestrial mammals that have adapted to life in the ocean over the vast sweep of time , sharing an ancestry with deer and cattle .
Dolphins have fascinated humans for millennia . Ancient mariners interpreted their presence during extended voyages as a sign of a safe passage to come . Upon the final approach to a distant harbor , their accompanying presence was interpreted as a sign of welcome . In other words , you could say that dolphins provided a false sense of security for these sailors throughout the journey , from beginning to end .
For centuries dolphins have played in the bow wakes of ocean-going vessels . They swam alongside the
by Dwight Williams
fleets of Magellan , Cook , and the ancient Polynesian seafarers throughout the Pacific — just as they do today with twenty-first-century container ships transiting the Pacific Ocean from Shanghai to the Panama Canal .
Even the simplest facts about dolphins are extraordinary . Consider that they sleep by resting one hemisphere of their brains at a time , floating nearly motionless at the surface , never fully losing consciousness . Some have been known to dive as deep as 1,000 feet , where they feed on squid in the utter darkness of the abyss .
There are countless verified accounts of dolphins seeking out the assistance of humans — often after having become entangled in fishing lines or nets . They seem to grasp that the source of their life-threatening problem is also the key to its solution : human beings . They seek us out for assistance , coming alongside boats or approaching SCUBA divers for relief , to be cut free . These incidents are so numerous that many have been captured on video .