A deep dive into the Dolphins of the Cape Coast - Part 1

A deep dive into the Dolphins of the Cape Coast – Part 1

Writer & Photographer Jax Bath

When most people think dolphin, they think Flipper. Flipper was a Bottlenose dolphin which stole the hearts of people around the world. This made the Bottlenose dolphin a household name and perhaps the only species that most people could name off the top of their head.

The world of Delphinidae is however a diverse one, with over 40 different species of dolphin roaming our earth’s oceans and rivers. Dolphins are considered to be toothed whales and use echolocation as a means to locate their food. They are typically thought to be more social than baleen filter-feeding whales, and have one blow hole at the top of their head, whereas baleen whales have two.

Off the Cape coast, there are six species of dolphin that one might encounter on a whale watching excursion or even from the rocky cliffs that grace our coastline. For this week’s ocean story, I thought I might detail three of the species, followed by the other three next week. I have chosen to do so in no particular order, apart from beginning with my all-time favourite.

The Common Dolphin

Click on the newspaper below to read more (see page 15).