Characteristics: Bottlenose dolphins are grey, varying from dark grey at the top near the dorsal fin to very light grey and almost white at the underside. This countershading makes them hard to see, both from above and below, when swimming. Bottlenose dolphins can live for more than 40 years. They can jump at a height of 6 meters (20 feet) up in the air; and use this technique to communicate with one another.

Habitat: Bottlenose dolphins inhabit warm and temperate seas worldwide. They live in all oceans except for the Arctic and Antarctic Circle area. Bottlenose dolphins live in groups typically of 10–30 members, called pods, but group size varies from single individuals up to more than 1,000. Their diets consist mainly of forage fish. Dolphins often work as a team to harvest fish schools, but they also hunt individually. Dolphins search for prey primarily using echolocation, which is similar to sonar.

Habits: Dolphins are voluntary breathers, who must deliberately surface and open their blowholes to get air. They can store almost twice as much oxygen in proportion to their body weight as a human can. The bottlenose dolphin typically rises to the surface to breathe through its blowhole two to three times per minute, although it can remain submerged for up to 20 minutes.