Lovely bubbly! Dolphins show off cute and unusual talent
Caters
This is one of a group of playful dolphins with an unusual and fascinating talent for blowing perfect bubbles.
The cute creatures spend hours creating and chasing bubbles at their watery home in Oltremare Park, Italy.
The clever pod of bottlenose dolphins use their blowholes to create rings of air.
They then bite into the vortex rings so that they burst into individual bubbles, which they dive through and chase to the surface.
The delightful shots were captured by Italian park creator and president, Leandro Stanzani, who has worked with dolphins for several decades.
The 63-year-old said they were extremely clever creatures, which were able to amuse themselves by creating their own toys both in the wild and in captivity.
He told Caters News: "Dolphins are very complex and social animals, they like to play alone, with other dolphins or indeed with whatever appears between their fins.
"When they don't have toys available they create their own. Air bubbles and air rings are their self-made toys.
"They create the shapes by blowing air rapidly under the surface of the water.
"Sometimes they form rings using the vortex created by their fast swim by injecting air into it.
"They like to play with their own creations by biting them or following them with their sophisticated sonar system.
"The talent can be taught by trainers but more often than not one dolphin will learn to do it on its own and the others will copy it."
Cute, or what?
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