Animals Untold: A Dolphin, a Goblin, and Octopuses.

The Rise Of The Chubby Pink Dolphins

Have you ever wondered what the pinkest, chubbiest animal in the ocean is? It is the Amazon River Dolphin!

Also known as the Inia Geoffrensis, these questionably adorable animals live mostly in the Amazon river. They have been spread over seven million square kilometers, a little less than the area of Australia.

When a river dolphin is born it is actually dark gray, but as they get older they turn pink. This is similar to a flamingo, which is also not born pink. Some can be more splotchy than others and males have been seen as being pinker. In the wild, they live until around the age of thirty, but in captivity they only have a lifespan of around three to over twenty-six years.

Interestingly enough, these chubby dolphins look heavy but are actually quite flexible and are just one of 49 known species of dolphins.

Goblins in the Ocean

Now moving to the not-so-cute side of animals, you meet the Goblin shark, a mysterious creature in Australia’s deep waters! Goblin sharks are 10-12 feet long, which is double the height of an average person. They live in the waters near Australia. They are rarely spotted because they live very deep in the ocean, about 4,265 feet deep. That is almost the height of four Eiffel Towers! Since they’re very hard to find, it is hard for scientists and other people studying them to figure out their general size and where they live. Goblin sharks can “shoot out” their jaws. This means that they can fold in the skin on their mouth and look a little like a normal shark, but when prey is near, they fold out the skin to grab them.

Goblin sharks live so deep in the ocean that it is too dark for them to see their prey well, so they rely on their other senses and a special organ that senses the electrical field of other animals. They just wait patiently for prey to come near them before snapping and feasting. Scientists assume they eat octopuses, fish, shrimp, and crabs, based on the shape of their teeth, but they are a mystery! 

Octopi or Octopuses?

Many people debate the plural of octopus. It’s confused many, including me! For a long time, I thought the plural of octopus was ‘octopi’, but I recently learned that the correct English plural is octopuses. People sometimes use three forms: octopi, octopuses, and octopodes. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, all three are recognized, but octopodes, which comes from Greek, is rarely used and usually considered incorrect. According to the Ocean Conservatory Website, octopi is the oldest form, but in English, octopuses is the most accepted and correct. However, this term isn’t often used, as octopuses are solitary creatures.