Bottlenose Dolphin
Along with the Moray Firth in Scotland, Cardigan Bay is one of two key sites for bottlenose dolphin in the UK. There are two major groups in a population which may number as many as 120 to 130 animals; one of these groups lives in Cardigan Bay and they often sighted between Aberarth, Ceregidion in the North and Ceibwr Bay Pembrokeshire in the South.
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The dolphins body is beautifully streamlined and extremely well suited to its life in the marine environment. A single nostril or blowhole allows the dolphin to take in air when it comes to the surface. Their bulging forehead contains an organ called the melon, which holds a mass of fat and oily tissue. The melon is important as it allows dolphins to echolocate food and to communicate with each other in their social groups or schools. Dolphins emit a series of ultra-high pitched clicks when hunting, which move as sound waves through the water and bounce back off anything like a shoal of fish that they hit. Dolphins are able to establish their distance from the object by the amount of time the signal takes to bounce back, and they can determine the nature of the object by using the melon to compare the strength of the signal on both sides of the head. Bottle-nose dolphins communicate by using a high-pitched whistling sound and each dolphin species seems to have its own unique language.
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