Common Bottlenose Dolphin 

Tursiops truncatus

• Fun Fact: These highly intelligent species use sound for both communication and hunting for food. They have many techniques for catching food.
  • Strand Feeding: A unique technique seen along the SC and GA coast. A small group of dolphins will herd fish tightly together into a “bait ball”. The dolphins will then form a line and accelerate at the shore to create a wave which forces the prey onto the shore. The dolphins follow shortly behind and strand themselves on shore to eat the fish.
  • Echolocations: A sonar adaptation, helps dolphin find prey in murky water, at night, or when feeding on bottom-dwelling species that burrow beneath the sand.
  • Pinwheeling: Swimming on its side, dolphins will trap fish by swimming in a circle of ever tightening circumference. The dolphin will then rush through the tightly compacted school of fish to snatch as many as they can.
  • Tail whacking: Dolphins use their fluke (tail fin) to hit fish and then eat the stunned prey.
  • Mud Ring Feeding: A group of dolphins encircle a school of fish in the shallows and slap their flukes against the mud floor, creating a ring of opaque water. Fish become disoriented and jump over the mud ring right into the waiting jaws of dolphins positioned outside of the mud ring.
  • Kerplunking: Dolphins will move their fluke through shallow sea grass beds, startling fish out of their hiding places, where they become an easy catch