Dolphin F286

Stats

Name: F286

Sex: Male

Age: Born 2012

A Dolphin’s Life

F286 has been observed more than 200 times since his birth in June 2012. With the exception of December 2016, he has been seen in every month of every year, highlighting the year-round, multi-year residency of the dolphins born in Sarasota Bay.

F286 is the first calf of Eve and the first observed grand-calf of Nicklo, the oldest known bottlenose dolphin in the world.

With the birth of his younger sibling in summer 2017, F286 moved away from his mother and entered his juvenile life stage. As time passes and he matures, he will range further and interact with more dolphins, especially other juveniles. He will eventually form a pair bond with another non-related male of a similar age and the two of them will take on the challenges of every day dolphin life together — feeding, breeding and socializing, and dealing with the threats presented by human activities.

A Dolphin’s Voice

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.

F286 tosses a fish