There have been many misconceptions about dolphins in our past as well as curiosities about them, from the freshwater bouto to the familiar saltwater bottlenose dolphin.  For years dolphins have aroused human curiosity causing us to wish to learn more about them.  There were many wonders if dolphins were intelligent or not.  It was believed that they were for the reason that their brain was of similar sized to a human brain.  It was thought that if we were able to communicate with an animal that the dolphin would be one of the most likely candidates. 

                Old Charley a dolphin and his pod were dolphins that liked to help fishermen round up fish and then would get fed the extras afterwards.  Other dolphins come to share and swim in the shallow waters with the other swimmers.  Dolphins enjoy having their backs rubbed just as a cat or dog does.  They seem extremely attracted to children that would gather fish and give them to the dolphins, the dolphins then dropping the fish only for the children to once again catch and give back to the dolphins, as if to play a sort of game.  Many scientists believed this sort of behavior was a way of trying to communicate with humans, children being the less intimidating of the species.

                Dolphins communicate with a variety of sounds, including clicks and whistles.  They emit these sounds for three reasons, one reason being to use echolocation, and the other reason being to communicate with other dolphins.  Also, they create some noises to temporarily stun fish.  In other words different sounds are for completely different reasons.

                Echolocation is used for several reasons.  Echolocation helps to locate where the dolphin is, since dolphins don’t have very good eyesight this comes in handy, helping them with vision at night or in the murkier depths of the ocean.  Echolocation also helps in stunning fish.  Echolocation is sometimes mistaken for a means to communicate with other dolphins in the same pod or of other pods.

                The dolphins ever popular whistle sounds it makes are what have been baffling scientists for so very long.  Is this a form of communication? Scientists weren’t sure and had to conduct experiments to try to find out what these noises were made for.  An experiment was formed.  A dolphin they had and were studying was being trained.  They decided to tape the sounds the dolphin made to see if they could figure out why the sounds were made.  When the tapes were slowed they found that the noises the dolphin made sounded like the dolphin was trying to repeat what the trainer was saying but in a much higher pitch that could not be fully heard and understood by a normal human ear.  This showed that dolphins must be trying to communicate.

                Most dolphin pods are made up of anywhere from 20 to 100 dolphins.  One of the larger species of dolphin the bottle nose dolphin, the most familiar of all the dolphins, seems to be the most curious and quite intelligent.  These dolphins swim up to boats chasing them and staring at them.  Another one  of the more common dolphin species are the spotted dolphins and the spinner dolphins these species are often seen together in the ocean all of these species being purely salt water species of dolphins.

                The bouto one of the few freshwater species is also one of the strangest species of dolphins.  Oddly enough this deformed dolphin has more of a small curve as a dorsal fin, a large and long rostrum, beak like structure found on the dolphin, and stiff hairs growing on the rostrum as well.  As one of the most ridiculous and ugly species it is easy to see why the saltwater freshwater species that looks like a true dolphin would fight with this creature.  Although the bouto is an intelligent creature it is small.

                Always the main dolphins to be studied has been the bottle nosed dolphin and the spotted dolphins.  Many trainers state that they are communicating with the dolphins.  Many spectators claim this as well.  Even though a large quantity of humans believes that dolphins and humans can communicate there are still many skeptics on this subject.  These skeptics claim that the trainers for the dolphins are brain washing the dolphins and that the dolphins so called speech of the dolphins was merely the mimicking of the trainers, although the majority of the public believes that it is communication and to this day provide funding for the research on these spectacular creatures such as Sea World, Walt Disney World, and the many other research centers that are spread throughout the world.