Name: F271, also known as Babe

Sex: Female

Age: Born 1994

Babe was the first calf born to dolphin FB99 and she’s been observed more than 300 times since we first sighted her on July 14, 1994. We see her most often between Terra Ceia Bay and Cortez.

During a 2020 survey in the Manatee River, our research team located a large group of dolphins near The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature in downtown Bradenton.

The group included dolphin Babe, along with three of her four calves: C911 (b. 2007, sex unknown), C912 (b. 2011, sex unknown), F269 (b. 2015, female, also known as Ruth) and 2714 (b. 2018, sex unknown). Check them out the picture below.

Bottlenose dolphins don’t often travel in large family groups, so seeing this family gathering was a nice surprise for the team!

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.

Babe and her calves