Dolphins at Play

September 5, 2008 - Posted by Lee Welles-author

A sure sign of intelligence is how much an adult animal plays. (FYI-I find this is true with people too!) The following is from an email that was forwarded to me:
 An explanation of how dolphins make these silver rings is that they
 are “air-core vortex rings”. Invisible, spinning vortices in the
 water are generated from the tip of a dolphin’s dorsal fin when it is
 moving rapidly and turning. When dolphins break the line, the ends are
 drawn together into a closed ring. The higher velocity fluid around
 the core of the vortex is at a lower pressure than the fluid
 circulating farther away. Air is injected into the rings via bubbles
 released from the dolphin’s blowhole. The energy of the water vortex
 is enough to keep the bubbles from rising for a reasonably few seconds
 of play time.

If anyone knows more about this–please tell us!

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 7:04 am and is filed under GAIA ROCKS!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Comments

  1. Scout says:

    that is so cool!! Hahaha I wish I could make those! I remember when I was little going to the aquarium and I ran from side to side and teh dolphin chased me.

    ... on July September 6th, 2008
  2. AirAquila95 says:

    Thats awesome!!It would be so cool to be able to do that. Its so cool that they know exactly when to make a new circle out of the old one. I loved how the one made it like spin and get a wavy!

    ... on July September 7th, 2008
  3. Bugger-treehugger says:

    amazing! Woo

    ... on July September 16th, 2008
  4. GaiaGirls32 says:

    OH MAN!

    This is sad it said the vid. was no longer avalible I wish I could see this. Can you put more dolphins on this net site??

    ... on July November 28th, 2008

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