With nose high in the air and small pectoral fins, appearing as hands which are held tight in place, this Bottlenose Dolphin performs a dance for the audience watching the show at the L'Oceanografic in Valencia, Spain. Using the strength of his tail, the dolphin keeps himself upright as he dances around the pool.
The tail flukes are made up dense tissue which contains no bones or muscle and moving his tail very fast back and forth in the water allows him to dance. While swimming, they move their tail in an up and down motion to propel them forward, making them extremely fast swimmers.
The Bottlenose Dolphin has a great deal of flexibility in its neck as there are five out of seven of their neck vertebraes that are not fused together. This is the same as a beluga only the Bottlenose Dolphin is much smaller in size.
There are twenty Bottlenose Dolphins that have called the L'Oceanografic their home, so while visiting Valencia, Spain, be sure to visit them to see them dance across the surface of the water. ... continue below the picture...
... There are many other tricks that each dolphin can perform as they are very energetic animals which can leap clear out of the water to great heights.
Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, at the L'Oceanographic in the La Ciutat de les Arts i les Cienies Complex, Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, The City of the Arts and Science, in the City of Valencia, Valencia, Spain, Europe.
Technical Information:
I photographed this photo with the digital SLR camera model Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, aperture of f/6.3, exposure time of 1/640 sec. on ISO 100, as always I used a original Canon Lens, the focus lenght for this picture was 300mm.