How fast dolphins swim

In the Indian River Lagoon the deepest waters are only 10 to 12 feet deep. How do dolphins stay warm? Even though dolphins are warm-blooded, and their internal temperature is about 98 degrees, they need to conserve their body heat in colder water.

Like most whales, the dolphin's body is surrounded by a thick layer of fat called blubber just under the skin that helps keep the dolphin warm. What do dolphins eat? Mostly a variety of fish and squid, depending on what part of the ocean they live in. The bottlenose dolphins in the Indian River Lagoon eat mostly fish because there aren't many squid in the lagoon. National Swim Team doing in the acknowledgements of a new paper on dolphins?

The problem dates back to , when Sir James Gray. By covering a torpedo with simulated dolphin skin made of a rubber membrane underlain with viscous fluid, he demonstrated that a dolphin or at least a torpedo dressed like one could modify the flow of water in precisely the way that Gray had imagined in order for the animals to reach their observed speeds.

The Americans and Soviets took notice. And so the paradox persisted. Until this month, when a scientist named Frank E. Fish announced an answer. Real name, we promise. Fish, a marine biologist at West Chester University. A dolphin propels itself forward by moving its tail with its lateral flukes, while its flippers steer. The flukes push on the surrounding water, and the water pushes back, creating thrust.

But such experiments were often based on dragging a static body through water, and thus did not fully capture the forces at work when an object actively moves through the water, as a dolphin does while swimming. Instead, he focused on improved hydrodynamic models that took into account the flexibility of the flukes in an attempt to more directly measure thrust. PIV that Fish saw real hope. In this technique, used to measure the forces exerted by swimming fish, a high-speed video camera follows the movement of tiny glass beads dropped into a tank and illuminated by a laser.

Most people walk at about 3. When dolphins want to go faster, they start jumping clear of the water, which is called 'porpoising' or 'breaching'. It may look like dolphins showing off when they 'porpoise', but they're actually saving energy by jumping clear of the water, because air has less drag than water. Why do dolphins chase alongside the bows of ships? The bow wave helps dolphins go faster with less energy, so if they're travelling in the same direction, it's like hitching a lift.

They may well just do it for fun though.