works cited

National Geographic(Basic Information)
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/bottlenose-dolphin/

WWF(Basic Information)
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/common-bottlenose-dolphin

Dolphin Research Center(Three Chamber Stomach)
https://dolphins.org/physiology

Nova Software(Digestive System)
http://novawavesoftware.com/info5/dolphin-digestive-system-organs.html

Animal Cells and Tissue(Three Chamber Stomach and Epithelium Tissue)
http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/biobookanimalts.html

University of Western Cape (Simple Columnar Epithelium)
http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/sci_ed/grade10/mammal/epithelial.htm

Simple Columnar Epithelium

According to a University of Western Cape website, Columnar epithelium cells are column shaped. Their main function is to line the stomach and intestines. Some are specialized for sensory reception. Those would be found in the nose, ears, and taste buds of the tongue. There are goblet cells, which are actually unicellular glands, which can be found in certain columnar epithelium. These goblet cells secrete a mucus in order to maintain a smooth surface. Most cells, that contain a nucleus, the nucleus is at the center of the cell. The columnar epithelium contains a nucleus at the base of the cell.










     

Epithelium Tissue

Dr. Farabee wrote in his article, the functions of the Epithelium tissue is to line, protect, and form glands. Epithelium can consist of three different cell types.These include: squamous epithelium, which are flattened cells, cuboidal epithelium, which are cube shaped cells, and finally, columnar epithelium, which are elongated cells. Epithelium can be simple stratified or psuedostratified. Simple has only one layer of cells while stratified has many layers of cells. And psuedostratified has only one layer but it appears, at first sight, to have two layers.

Three Chamber Stomach

According to the Dolphin Rescue Center,due to the fact that dolphins share the characteristic of a three chamber stomach with a cow, this gives more evidence of the dolphins evolution from a terrestrial ancestor. The DRC also mentions that the majority of the breaking down of the food takes place in the fore stomach(F). Most of the digestion occurs in the main stomach(M). And in the pyloric stomach (P) the rest of the digestion occurs, and empties the contents into the intestinal region. Dr. Michael J. Farabee discussed in his article, Animal Cells and Tissues, the stomachs of mammals contains four major tissues. These include smooth muscle tissue, loose connective tissue,nervous tissue, and epithelium tissue.

Digestive System

The main function of the Digestive System is to obtain food, digest the food, and absorb anything that would be of use to the Dolphin. According to Novasoftware.com, the digestive system contains, in order, the mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, the large intestine, and finally the rectum. Most of the digestion process takes place in the stomach, due to the fact that Dolphins do not chew their food. Dolphins, just like cows, have a three chamber stomach.

Basic Information

According to the National Geographic website, the Bottlenose Dolphin's scientific name is Tursiops truncatus. They are classified into scientific class Mammalia, which means they are mammals. These gorgeous mammals are in the scientific order Cetacea. This order includes large aquatic mammals with flippers as forelimbs, a horizontally flattened tail, one or two nostrils at the top of their head for breathing, and hind limbs are not present. Bottlenose Dolphins can grow up to be 10-14ft and weigh as much as 1,100lbs. Bottlenose Dolphins are mostly found in Tropical oceans, sometimes in other warm water around the world. Dolphins often feed on bottom-dwelling fish and sometimes squid or shrimp. However; while following fishing boats, in hopes of leftovers, they may become entangled in the fishing nets. According to WWF.org Bottlenose Dolphins endangered status is "least concern" which means they are doing perfectly fine population wise.