Name: F155

Sex: Female

Age: Born 1990

Murphy Brown was born in 1990 to FB05, one of the earliest dolphins we documented (back in 1971, just a year after our research program began). She is part of one of the best-known dolphin lineages in Sarasota Bay. Since Murphy Brown’s birth, we’ve observed her more than 1,190 times. One of our most recent observations came this year when we saw her on May 17 with her ninth calf!

We also know Murphy Brown’s sister, FB55, who has given birth to seven calves of her own, including her most recent calf, born in 2020.

This May 2022 picture shows Murphy Brown with her ninth calf, 1559.

A Special Note About the Audio Recording

In collaboration with numerous colleagues over the past 35 years, our dolphin communication research team has collected thousands of hours of acoustic recordings from members of the resident Sarasota bottlenose dolphin community, with a focus on individually distinctive signature whistles. Recordings have been made during periodic health assessments, when we are able to obtain high-quality recordings of known individual dolphins. We are currently in the process of systematically assembling a verified signature whistle catalog, with multiple samples from each of the approximately 1,000 unique recording sessions of almost 300 individual dolphins. Members of this collaborative team, and our student researchers, come from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of North Carolina Wilmington, University of St. Andrews, and Hampshire College. Learn more about dolphin communication.