AnimalsDolphins are small toothed whales. They are fast, playful and clever, live in groups, and find their way and their food by echolocation: making clicks and listening for the echoes. They breathe air through a blowhole.
Quick facts
- Scientific name
- Tursiops truncatus
- Group
- Mammals
- Diet
- Carnivore (eats other animals)
- Lives in
- Warm and temperate seas worldwide
- Habitat
- Coasts and open sea
- A young one is called
- calf
- A group is called
- pod
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
How it is classified
Scientists sort living things into groups within groups. Reading down, each step is a smaller group, ending with the species itself.
- Kingdom Animalia
- Phylum Chordata
- Class Mammalia
- Order Cetacea
- Family Delphinidae
- Genus Tursiops
- Species Tursiops truncatus
Other members of the family Delphinidae on this site: orca.
More distant relatives in the order Cetacea: blue whale, Ganges river dolphin, humpback whale.
Classification follows the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Other reference works arrange some groups differently. How classification works.
Is it in danger?
The common bottlenose dolphin is listed as Least Concern. The species is widespread or numerous enough that it is not considered at risk of extinction at present.
This is the IUCN Red List category as recorded in Wikidata on 11 November 2026. The IUCN Red List itself is the authority and may carry a newer assessment. What the categories mean.