13 Gorgeous Photos of Dolphins in the Wild

This Mealtime Roundup

Dolphins have plenty of tricks up their proverbial sleeves (er, fins) when it comes to ensuring they get a good meal. In this photo, a group of dolphins is herding a school of sardines, swimming around them so the small fish pack closer and closer together. This enables the dolphins to eventually swim through the tightly-packed school and eat as many fish as possible at once.

This Majestic Jumper

According to the Sea Watch Foundation in the UK, the bottlenose dolphin can jump as high as 4.9 meters—that's just over 16 feet!

This Speedy Swimmer

Since dolphins are mammals, they need to breathe air into their lungs just like humans. But while we have nostrils on our noses, dolphins have blowholes on top of their heads that they use to breathe air in and out.

This Protective Mama

This dolphin isn't just an overprotective parent—dolphin calves typically travel with their moms until they're up to six years old, learning to find their own meals, communicate, and find their group's dwelling if they stray from home.

This Photogenic Pal

Divers constantly run into dolphins during their underwater excursions. This guy in particular was lucky enough to get up close and personal with a friendly fellow!

These Cuddling Creatures

Okay, so we don't actually know whether or not these dolphins are cuddling, but we'd like to imagine that they are, anyway.

This Mobile Mammal

According to the Dolphin Communication Project, these speedy swimmers can travel as fast as 7.8 miles per hour. (For reference, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is estimated to swim at a maximum of 6 miles per hour.)

These Pink Pals

Unlike other mammals with lighter-than-average coloring, these Amazon river dolphins don't owe their pink hue to albinism. These dolphins actually tend to look more like their oceanic counterparts at birth, typically bearing a bluish-gray color and becoming pinker over time.

This Wave-Riding Crew

While it certainly looks like a good time, wave-riding isn't all fun and games for dolphins. Dolphins frequently catch waves as a way of moving through the water faster, although they do combine this purposeful travel with forms of play and aggression, from trying to overtake one another to hitting each other with their tails.

These Synchronized Swimmers

Move over, Esther Williams. While these dolphins may look like they're posing for a photo op, their synchronized swimming serves a greater purpose, too: Research suggests that synchronized swimming is a form of social bonding for dolphins and can even make them more optimistic.

These Aerodynamic Mammals

Dolphins don't just do their impressive jumps for fun—they fly above the water to socialize, communicate, move faster, and as a means of seeing what's ahead of them—some researchers also believe that reentry into the water helps them clean themselves.

This Hungry Fellow

While dolphins frequently feast on fish like this fellow here, that's far from the only food in their diet. Depending on the type of dolphin and their environment, dolphins frequently consume squid, jellyfish, krill, crabs, and shrimp, while species like orcas often consume mammals like sea lions, as well.

This Bonded Pack

It takes a village to raise a child—or a dolphin calf, for that matter. As seen in this photo, mother dolphins will frequently enlist the help of a fellow adult dolphin to help her raise her young. And for more fascinating fauna, discover The 30 Rarest Animals on the Planet.

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