Morphology Bottle-Nosed Dolphins and Great

¶ … Morphology

Bottle-Nosed Dolphins and Great White Sharks

Vertebrates are animals that have a backbone and/or a spinal column that supports their body. The interlocking units of the backbone are called vertebrae. Not only does the backbone support the entire body, it also anchors the limbs. Animals that are vertebrates include fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and various insects. The backbone can be inside the body or on the outside part of the body. Of all of the animals in the world, vertebrates only make up about 2% of all animal species. This paper will discuss the comparative morphology between two vertebrates: a dolphin and a shark.

Dolphins are mammals that can be found in the oceans around the world. Dolphins are mammals of the order Cetacean and the families Plantanistidae and Delphinidae and include about 50 species. Most dolphin species are about 6 feet in length, the males averaging 4 to 8 inches longer than females. The longest dolphin, the bottle-nose dolphin, can reach over nine-feet in length and weight up to 440 pounds. The smallest dolphin species is the buffalo which is found in the Amazon River. The Buffalo dolphin rarely grows over 3.9 feet or weighs more than 66 pounds. There are more than 32 different types of dolphins in total and they are closely related to whales and porpoises. Dolphins have very powerful streamline bodies with strong backbones that are able to propel the swiftly and quickly through the waters of the ocean. One particular dolphin is the bottle-nosed dolphin. Bottle-nosed dolphins are named for their snouts, which distinctly set off from the head, like the neck of a bottle. The animals are generally dark gray or black above, with a lighter belly. The length of an adult varies, from 6 and a half feet to 13 feet. Bottle-nosed dolphins have a prominent, curved dorsal fin with a thin trailing edge that readily tatters. Bottle-nosed dolphins are coastal in most areas and remain in groups less than 20, although off shore varieties also exist in many places and, in deep water, groups can be as large as 200. Some populations make seasonal migrations. Bottle-nosed dolphins are often considered the most adaptable of the cetaceans because they live amid industrial activity around harbors and ship channels in many parts of the world.

Bottle-nosed dolphins have very particular eating habits. They feed on many different types of prey, including shrimp, squid, other invertebrates, and fishes. The dolphins feed by nosing into near- shore rocky crevasses, by chasing fish onto mud banks and snapping them up while they are beached, or by cooperatively herding prey into dense clusters, sometimes against a shore or up to the surface of the water.

Sharks are another vertebrate that are similar to dolphins in many ways and very different from dolphins in other ways. There are more that 250 species of sharks, ranging from the harmless whale shark to the ferocious great white.

The great white shark, known as Carchardon Carcharias, feeds regularly on marine mammals, such as seals, sea lions, otters, dolphins, and whales. They enjoy eating bottle-nosed dolphins whenever they get an opportunity. Samuel Gruber in Discovering Sharks writes that the great white consumes marine mammals when they come across a deceased one. The Great White shark, also known as the white death, is considered the most dangerous shark in the waters. The Great White has a conical instead of a flattened snout, black eyes, and large, serrated, arrowhead-shaped teeth. The upper and lower lobes of the tail are almost equal in size, and the body is blue or brown-gray, not white, except on its belly. The Great White is found in temperate waters throughout the world's oceans, and it is important, though not common, predator in California.

Upon viewing these two animals at the zoo, I found them to be very similar in many ways. They both live in the ocean, both had long grey bodies and propelled through the water like a torpedo. The were very big fish that appeared to be in control of their environment. However, the sharks appeared to be mean and mad. Whereas the dolphins appeared to be happy and full of life. They swam, jump and entertained the onlookers. These two salt water fish were very similar in many physical ways, yet very different in their movement, their habitat, their diet, and their way of life.