Dolphin

The dolphin is the wood duck of pelagic fishes, so spectacularly colorful that it seems impossible it could
have evolved by accident. The back and head are iridescent, glowing neon blue and chartreuse green. The
sides and belly are gold, sprinkled with bright blue spots. And, like some other pelagics, the fish has the
ability to light up with shimmering waves of color across its body, almost as if its skin were embedded
with moving lights.

In fact, biologists say the fishs color is the result not only of pigment, but of microscopic structures in the
skin, which the fish can manipulate to change its color. The color changes could have evolved for
spawning selection, or perhaps as a camouflage when approached by predators, as with many bottom
creatures. In any case, the spectacular color in life leaves no doubt when a dolphin dies; the skin almost
instantly turns an ugly, blotchy gray-silver or dull yellow.

Dolphins are found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, anywhere that the water remains at 70
degrees or warmer throughout the winter. In U.S. waters they migrate seasonally, following bait
northward along the Atlantic coast to Virginia and beyond in spring, back toward the Keys in winter, but
good numbers remain in Florida waters throughout the summer as well.

The dolphin is unique among pelagic fishes in that the mature males have a distinctly different shape
than the females; the forehead of an adult bull is high and blunt, while the cow has a more typical,
streamlined forehead. (The males look just like the females until they approach adulthood.) There are no
reports of the male using this head as a battering ram in mating battles, but its pretty clearly a secondary
sexual characteristic.

Dolphin reportedly can reach speeds up to 50 mph, and sometimes run down flyingfish in the air, though
more commonly they race along just under the surface, watching a flyer and eating it the second it
touches down. They also eat lots of squid, small bonito and other pelagic bait.








Kangaroo


A kangaroo is an animal found only in Australia, although it has a smaller relative, called a wallaby, which
lives on the Australian island of Tasmania and also in New Guinea.

Kangaroos eat grass and plants. They have short front legs, but very long, and very strong back legs and a
tail. These are used for sitting up and for jumping. Kangaroos have been known to make forward jumps of
over eight metres, and leap across fences more than three metres high. They can also run at speeds of
over 45 kilometres per hour.

The largest kangaroos are the Great Grey Kangaroo and the Red Kangaroo. Adult grow to a length of 1.60
metres and weigh over 90 kilos.

Kangaroos are marsupials. This means that the female kangaroo has an external pouch on the front of
her body. A baby kangaroo is very tiny when it is born, and it crawls at once into this pouch where it
spends its first five months of life.