Tursiops Dolphin Skull Replica measures 19.2 inches. Tursiops Dolphin Skull Replica is museum quality polyurethane cast. 2-part skull (separate cranium and jaw). Made in USA. Known as Bottlenose Dolphin.
Tursiops, or Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, is the most well-known species from the family Delphinidae.
The Tursiops Dolphin is grey in color and may be between 6.6 and 13.1 ft. long, and weighs between 330 and 1,430 lb. Dolphins have a short and well-defined snout that looks like an old-fashioned gin bottle.
Their diets consist mainly of eels, squid, shrimp and a wide variety of fishes. They do not chew their food, instead swallowing it whole.
They emit clicking sounds and listen for the return echoes to determine the location and shape of nearby items, including potential prey.
The Tursiops Dolphin weighs an average of 660 pounds. It can reach a length of just over 13 feet. Its color is usually dark gray on the back and lighter gray on the flanks.
Tursiops Dolphins have elongated upper and lower jaws form what is called a rostrum, or snout, which gives the animal its common name.
The real, functional nose is the blowhole on top of its head; the nasal septum is visible when the blowhole is open. Bottlenose dolphins have 18 to 28 conical teeth on each side of each jaw.
The flukes (lobes of the tail) and dorsal fin are formed of dense connective tissue and do not contain bone or muscle. The dorsal fin usually shows phenotypic variations that help discriminate among populations.
The animal propels itself by moving the flukes up and down. The pectoral flippers (at the sides of the body) are for steering.
Tursiops Dolphins can live for more than 40 years. Females typically live 5 to 10 years longer than males, with some females exceeding 60 years.
This extreme age is rare and less than 2 percent of all Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin will live longer than 60 years. Bottlenose dolphin or Tursiops truncatus can jump at a height of 20 feet up in the air.
Numerous investigations of Tursiops Dolphin intelligence have been conducted, examining mimicry, use of artificial language, object categorization, and self-recognition.
They can use tools (sponging; using marine sponges to forage for food sources they normally could not access) and transmit cultural knowledge from generation to generation, and their considerable intelligence has driven interaction with humans.
Bottlenose dolphins gained popularity from aquarium shows and television programs such as Flipper. They have also been trained by militaries to locate sea mines or detect and mark enemy divers.
In some areas, they cooperate with local fishermen by driving fish into their nets and eating the fish that escape.
Some encounters with humans are harmful to the dolphins: people hunt them for food, and dolphins are killed inadvertently as a bycatch of tuna fishing and by getting caught in crab traps.
