Battle Scars…
Life can be rough at this time of year as an adult male dolphin – territories and females to defend, disputes to settle and also keeping some of the young upstart “lads” firmly in their place…it’s all go. As you can see in the composite photo below, both of the big male Bottlenose dolphins that you can adopt with us at WDC that I have seen in the last few days have been having a busy summer. Mischief, in the top section of the photo has picked up some brand new “rake marks” on his dorsal fin plus some along his back and the same goes for Sundance, the dolphin lower in the picture and he has some impressive new rakes on his body too. This isn’t unusual and in Bottlenose dolphin society this is all part of everyday life – Bottlenoses can fight, sometimes just a bit of rough and tumble (play-fighting) but at other times it gets really serious and their impressive array of teeth that are all the same size and shape come into use, often to dramatic effect like these rakes. They will eventually fade and may even get more new ones on top creating many layers that you can sometimes see in certain light conditions. Every scratch, every score, every bite mark tells a story, an encounter – a moment in time in the amazing world of a wild, free dolphin- the way that they all should be.
