Name: F222

Sex: Male

Age: Born 1999

F222 is the second calf of Claire (also known as F131), the grand-calf of Genie (FB59) and great-grand-calf of Granny (FB19). (Learn more about this maternal lineage here.) We’ve observed F222 more than 750 times since his birth in 1999.

In July 2015 — around the time of a popular boating weekend — we observed him with deep slices to his dorsal fin consistent with a boat propeller strike. We’re thankful he survived his injuries and he remains a part of the Sarasota Bay dolphin community.
Please remember: Boat safe — their lives depend on it!

• Learn more about dolphin-safe boating

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.

In this image, F233 swims with her calf, 2332 on July 11, 2021. We estimate that the calf was just days old in this image.