Dolphins are among the most intelligent forms of life on the planet. They have the ability to be trained by a human to perform stunts on command. That process can be linked to training a dog to sit, bark, etc. Below are a few of the stunts they are trained to do on command. Humans do not teach dolphins everything though. Most tricks dolphins perform are what they learn in the games that dolphins play. By observing the behavior of dolphins, it appears that these games come with a set of rules. A violation of a rule even results in a scolding by another dolphin. So, as you can see dolphins are a lot like people, in the sense that we all "play" the same kind of way.
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Here, the dolphin is jumping in the air. No one really knows why dolphins jump, but its believed that dolphins jump to show how powerful they are, to show off, or just to have fun.
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Here is a Spinner Dolphin. When they jump, they also spin at the same time. Its almost like a spinning top coming out of the water. |
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Here is another dolphin jumping into the air. The next time you go swimming, try jumping out of the water by pushing off the bottom of the pool. Then you will see how hard it is to jump like dolphins do for fun. |
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The dolphin to the right is doing something called porpoising. Porpoising is traveling along in and out of the water. |
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Dolphins are expert jumpers. They can jump as high as they do because they swim really fast just under the surface, and then they turn suddenly so their speed carries them up into the air. Or they come straight up from deep water like a rocket. |
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This dolphin is doing another form of stunt. It is called a spyhop. In this trick, the dolphin simply pops its head out to take a look around. |
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This dolphin is doing just a simple jump. It just jumps right out of the water and does a flip in the air. |
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This dolphin was trained to jump in the air. To train a dolphin you have to gain its trust. This dolphin obviously trusts its trainer very much. |
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