Is this a mixed species dolphin pod? (Florida)
Posted by Mentally_scrambled@reddit | marinebiology | View on Reddit | 6 comments
I went out fishing on Friday and we saw tons of dolphins! Saw a couple pods of spinner dolphins and some pods of what I assume are Atlantic spotted dolphins.
Then we came across this pod that looks like it has mostly Atlantic spotted dolphins with a couple of bottle nose dolphins that are also part of the pod! You can see the two swimming side by side at the beginning of the video.
This was 50 miles offshore in the gulf, off the coast of Venice, Florida.
I didn’t know that dolphins mixed pods like this! Is that really what’s going on?
Snarktopus8@reddit
baby speckled dolphins look like bottle noses (they lack spots). i’m not seeing any adult Tursiops. I see only adult Stenella. this makes me think these small spotless babies are Stenella.
They are know to interbreed but I have seen this in the field many times, where there are adult spotted and baby spotted that appear spotless.
Mentally_scrambled@reddit (OP)
Ah good to know! The spotless ones look roughly the same size as the spotted ones so they must be pretty big babies!
Snarktopus8@reddit
Oh wait, that one at :32 seconds closer to the boat is an adult bottlenose. the other spotless one i’m seeing, after that, on the other side of the bow is a baby.
Snarktopus8@reddit
Oh wait, that one at :32 seconds closer to the boat is an adult bottlenose. the other spotless one i’m seeing at :42 is a baby.
BiophileB@reddit
Yeah, they do that!!
Mentally_scrambled@reddit (OP)
That’s pretty cool! I wonder if bottle nose and spotted dolphins speak the same “language” with their clicks and calls and can understand each other pretty well