---
title: Common Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)
scientific_name: Tursiops truncatus
common_name: Common Bottlenose Dolphin
taxon: Dolphins
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-02T09:24:24.662Z
updated: 2026-08-14T11:57:50.799Z
tags: Common Bottlenose Dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, Dolphins, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/dolphins/common-bottlenose-dolphin
---

# Common Bottlenose Dolphin (*Tursiops truncatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Dolphins (*Delphinidae*)
- **Size:** up to 4 m
- **Weight:** 150 - 650 Kg
- **Depth:** 0-300 m
- **Max age:** 60 yrs
- **Diet:** Piscivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Open coast and offshore water, occasionally over reef
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **CITES:** Appendix II
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- robust gray body with a short thick beak set off from the melon by a crease
- tall curved dorsal fin, often nicked - the nicks identify individuals
- larger and plainer than the Indo-Pacific Bottlenose, with no belly spotting
- length up to 4 m

The dolphin everyone pictures: robust, gray, 2 to 4 m (6.5 to 13 ft), with a short thick beak, a tall curved dorsal fin and a permanent half-smile that is an accident of jaw shape and means nothing.

Each one has a name. In the first months of life a calf invents a signature whistle of its own and keeps it for decades, using it to announce itself and hearing it used by others to address it. Dolphins copy the signature of an absent animal to call it, respond to their own whistle played back through a speaker, and remember the whistles of companions they have not met for twenty years. It is the closest thing to a personal name documented in any animal outside our own species.

The rest of the behavior is built on the same social machinery: hunting is coordinated, prey is driven against sandbanks or into tight balls, and techniques are learned from the mother rather than instinctive, so neighboring groups do things differently.

Dorsal fins collect nicks and scars, and no two are alike, which is why photographs of fins are the standard census tool. A shot of a fin from a dive boat is genuinely useful data, and a shot of an animal's face is not.

**We do not support keeping dolphins in captivity.** These are animals that travel tens of kilometers a day, hunt in coordinated groups, hold societies with their own dialects, and stay with their families for life. A show pool reproduces none of it, and the noise, the chlorine and the boredom are not details - they are what kills them early. Many of the animals performing today were taken from the sea, and the drive hunts that supply them continue because the tickets sell. So do not buy one. No dolphinarium, swim-with-dolphins program or hotel show survives without paying visitors, and every one of them ends the day people stop coming.

## Also known as

- **English:** black porpoise, Common Bottlenose Dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, bottlenose porpoise
- **Arabic:** delfin kabir, دلفين قاروري الأنف الشائع, دلفين قاروري الأنف
- **Hebrew:** dolphinan yam hatichon, דולפינן ים תיכוני, דולפינן ים-התיכון
- **French:** dauphin à gros nez, dauphin nesarnak, grand dauphin
- **Italian:** delfino maggiore, Delfini hundëshishe, delfino soffiatore, tursio
- **German:** grosser Tümmler, GroRer Tummler, Großtümmler, hochcöpliger Tümmler
- **Spanish:** bufeo, Delfín nariz de botella, delfin de las islas, delfín mular
- **Greek:** Ρινοδέλφινο (Rinodélfino), rinodélfino, Ρινοδέλφινο
- **Turkish:** Şişe Burunlu Yunus, afale, Afalina
- **Portuguese:** Golfinho-bico-de-garrafa, Golfinho-roaz, boto-da-tainha
- **Dutch:** Tuimelaar
- **Swedish:** öresvin, atlantiskt öresvin, delfin
- **Polish:** butlonos zwyczajny
- **Czech:** delfín skákavý
- **Japanese:** bando iruka, handa iruka, ハンドウイルカ
- **Chinese:** 宽吻海豚, 樽鼻海豚, 瓶鼻海豚
- **Ukrainian:** Афаліна, Афаліна звичайна, Афаліна чорноморська
- **Russian:** afalina (in Black Sea), bolshoi delfin, chernyi delfin
- **AF:** stompneusdolfyn, stumpneusdolfyn
- **BG:** afаlа, Афала
- **CA:** dofí mular, molar
- **CYM:** Dolffiniaid Trwyn Potel, dolffin trwyn potel, dolffin trwynbwl
- **DA:** Øresvin
- **EU:** izurde handia
- **FI:** Pullokuonodelfiini
- **FRY:** Tûmel-dolfyn
- **GL:** Arroaz
- **GLA:** muc bhiorach, mucan biorach, buthag
- **HR:** dobri dupin
- **HU:** palackorrú delfin
- **ID:** lumba-lumba hidung botol
- **IS:** Dettir, Höfrungur, Stökkull
- **KAL:** nezarnak
- **KO:** keun-dolgorae, 큰돌고래
- **LIM:** Tummeleer
- **LV:** Pudeļdeguna delfīns, lielaa-iuras-tsuuka
- **MLG:** lambondriaka aman'oron-tavoahangy
- **MLT:** delfin geddumu qasir
- **MRI:** Terehu
- **NNO:** tumlar
- **NO:** tumler, tandthöije
- **SL:** Velika pliskavka, velika pliskovka
- **SQI:** Delfin I Madh
- **TAM:** ongil (dolphins in general), odan, ongole
- **TEL:** gadamu
- **TH:** โลมาปากขวดธรรมดา

## Scientific synonyms

- *Delphinus (Tursio) cymodoce* Burmeister, 1867
- *Delphinus compressicauda* Lesson, 1828
- *Delphinus erebennus* Cope, 1865
- *Delphinus metis* Gray, 1846
- *Delphinus nesarnack* Lacépède, 1804
- *Delphinus nesarnak* Reichenback, 1846
- *Delphinus parvimanus* Lutken, 1887
- *Delphinus troncatus* F. Cuvier, 1836
- *Delphinus truncatus* Montagu, 1821
- *Delphinus tursio* Bonnaterre, 1789
- *Delphinus tursio obtusus* Schlegel, 1862
- *Tursio cymodice* Figueira, 1894
- *Tursio metis* Gray, 1868
- *Tursio truncatus* Gray, 1843
- *Tursiops gephyreus* Lahille, 1908
- *Tursiops gilli* Dall, 1873
- *Tursiops gillii* Scammon, 1874
- *Tursiops maugeanus* Iredale & Troughton, 1934
- *Tursiops nuuanu* Andrews, 1911
- *Tursiops parvimanus* Van Beneden, 1886
- *Tursiops subridens* Flower, 1884
- *Tursiops truncantus* Montagu, 1821
- *Tursiops truncatus gilli* Tomilin, 1962
- *Tursiops truncatus gillii* Tomilin, 1957
- *Tursiops tursio* Gervais, 1855

## Range

Adriatic Sea, Belgium, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Gulf of Mexico, Ionian Sea, Ireland, Kenya, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, North Sea, Pacific Ocean, Seychelles, Southern Ocean, Tanzania, World Oceans

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/mammals/dolphins/common-bottlenose-dolphin)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*