February 13th, 2013 
Treehugger recently posted 10 Reasons Why Dolphins Are Undeniably Awesome. This is all nice and well but this does overlook some key aspects of dolphins that should be recognized. Good luck trying to sleep tonight when you start thinking about dolphins.
1. They gang rape femalesAs Miriam wrote before XXfactor, “Dolphin sex can be violent and coercive. Gangs of two or three male bottlenose dolphins isolate a single female from the pod and forcibly mate with her, sometimes for weeks at a time. To keep her in line, they make aggressive noises, threatening movements, and even smack her around with their tails. And if she tries to swim away, they chase her down.”
5. Dolphins kill their own babies. Males are known to kill off babies. In one study, 5 juvenile bottlenose dolphins had fatal injuries consistent with a bottlenose dolphin attack. Infanticide by males may occur within dolphins, as it does in other species, because females become immediately ready for pregnancy after the death of infant. The study also suggests that violent interactions with harbour porpoises (near 100 incidents in this study alone) by bottlenose dolphins may occur because they confuse infants of the two species.
6. Dolphins never sleep. Yep dolphins can stay awake for five days straight with no loss of mental acuity. And after missing all that sleep they don’t even need to catch it up with little dolphin naps. So great, horny dolphins are probably awake while I’m sleeping. Just fantastic.
7. Dolphins are voracious predators. Dolphins are not some crystal and patchouli wearing vegan. Nope they are stone cold meat eaters. The feed in packs so no fish or squid can escape. Hunts are coordinated and focused on decimating prey. Dolphins are inventive and creative and nothing is safe. Not even us on land.
9. Dolphins are sexually transmitted disease bags. Yep dolphins are just full of STD’s. h/t to SFS
10. Freakin dolphin and rainbow art. I blame dolphins for this trend. This stuff is all horrible, a blight on human existence. It’s so bad I think it actually discourages people from becoming marine biologists. And let’s not even start with dolphin and rainbow tattoos. Or the “very unique” dolphin on the ankle tattoo! There is only one cool dolphin tattoo.
Also now that you are primed make sure you take a look at The Oatmeal’s Five Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth
So it looks like I spent the morning Googling shark sex, and you spent it Googling dolphin rape. I love my job.
You are wrong. There are TWO awesome dolphin tattoos: http://www.geekytattoos.com/dolphin-vs-unicorn-tattoo/
Flippin dolphins… they think their so cute!! I know there was something evil about them….
I did a presentation on this in college years ago, wish I had those videos then :P
Dolphins are not the cute superheroes of the sea that people imagine them to be.
Anyone who loves dolphins but hates sharks is just a finist.
Finist: one who discriminates against a marine animal based on the position of its caudal fin
I blame Lisa Frank. http://media-cache-ec5.pinterest.com/192/03/cf/b3/03cfb3437ccc4a5785c1ebf07a6de173.jpg
Like I always say, Dolphins are animals that breed through an arse hole at the top of their head
This was absolutely awesome! I knew about the Dolphin rape and human-dolphin interactions. However, THUG DOLPHINS?! Thanks for the warning. :)
Great… now I have Dolphin Boy stuck in my head…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmS0qi6IqB4
I was looking for news on the Football team and this is what I found. I looked for updates on one nightmare and stumbled on another. Grey, std infected rapists that feel like wet hot dogs. No wonder the Japanese hate them so much!
I love this post. I really do. It’s perfect for valentine’s day. ;)
[...] 10 reasons why dolphins are a$$holes. [...]
This piece should really be titled ’10 Reasons MALE Dolphins Are A$$holes’!
I’d rename it: “Dolphins, All holes filled”
Anyways, I blame the female dolphins, always having a headache.
Yeah because all of these apply to males…. If you actually read it you will see that only a few of these pertain to only males. Thoroughly read something before you start spouting your mouth off, god damned feminist.
Of course, it’s worth noting that all the bad behavior listed is also extensively documented in humans.
[...] Still in the sea, here are some more entertaining links. 10 reasons why dolphins are undeniably awesome and 10 reasons why dolphins are assholes. [...]
[...] Check out the whole list of reasons dolphins are never to be trusted over at Deep Sea News. [...]
Awesome! I always hated dolphins!!! Prefer meerkats instead
This really applies to young teenage dolphins, like all teenagers can be a bit crazy, there are infinitely more good dolphins that bad ones. Dont let a few terrorist nutcase dolphins spoil the beauty of these creatures! Every intelligent species has some bad ones.
This article is awesome. I can’t stop laughing. I know it’s wrong but I kinda want a crappy dolphin rainbow tattoo now.
I like to see Greenpeace try defending dolphins after this.
This is utter garbage. I know this is supposed to be tounge in cheek, but most of your points are irrelevant. On #2, there is no objective evidence that any of these encounters were sexual in nature. that’s just the way humans perceived the behavior. On #3, this is a physical attribute not behaviorial. #6, how does this make them assholes? If anything, that makes them awesome and it belongs on the other list. Besides, there is a big difference between never sleeping and sleeping less often than humans. #7, again, how does this make them assholes? they need to eat, they are efficient hunters. #9, unless there is evidence of dolphins knowing they carry a desease and intentionally giving that disease to other dolphins, this is completely irrelavent. #10 takes the cake. Dolphin inspired art? Really? You are blaming bad art done by humans on dolphins? [ad hominem attack removed by editor]
” The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour
You obviously didn’t get this was tongue and cheek
Me again, probably should have said I have no sense of humour. I’m also a dolphin and would like to put myself in number 11 spot, thanks,
Dolphin Dave.
“Sleeping
Generally, dolphins sleep with only one brain hemisphere in slow-wave sleep at a time, thus maintaining enough consciousness to breathe and to watch for possible predators and other threats. Earlier sleep stages can occur simultaneously in both hemispheres. In captivity, dolphins seemingly enter a fully asleep state where both eyes are closed and there is no response to mild external stimuli. In this case, respiration is automatic; a tail kick reflex keeps the blowhole above the water if necessary. Anesthetized dolphins initially show a tail kick reflex. Though a similar state has been observed with wild sperm whales, it is not known if dolphins in the wild reach this state. The Indus river dolphin has a sleep method that is different from that of other dolphin species. Living in water with strong currents and potentially dangerous floating debris, it must swim continuously to avoid injury. As a result, this species sleeps in very short bursts which last between 4 and 60 seconds.”
- los wiki
Golly, they sound like Christian Republicans.
To illustrate your point about how the rape females you include a video that shows ONLY male on male violence, male on male rape.
Up yours and your politically correct erasure.
I didn’t see anything here about Dolphins bad side that humans are also pretty damn good at as well. So it sounds to me a little like the pot calling the kettle black.
They’re just mammals with shark-envy….. :-P
[...] http://deepseanews.com/2013/02/10-reasons-why-dolphins-are-aholes/ [...]
[...] http://deepseanews.com/2013/02/10-reasons-why-dolphins-are-aholes/ [...]
They are also kinda chubby.
It’s like Jonathan Coulton says in “I Crush Everything”
Having had family living in Sedona AZ, home of the “harmonic convergence centers” and only “family friendly dolphin depictions” I often would point out to dolphin art artist some of the elucidations above to combat the “happy nice dolphin riding off into the sunset with Kokopelli” myth. I was nearly stoned by a crowd of unhappy hipsters not liking alternative views of their saintly dolphins.
Shared a place with a dolphin keeper years ago, when I worked with mammals at a zoological collection in England, the guy was always getting home covered in bites and bruises – all down to the dolphins, never the killer whale!! I got less injuries from 100+ assorted bears, wolves, cheetahs, lions and tigers!
Another one: they’ll eat your children. Well, at least they will if your children are holding fish. ;) http://animalsbeingdicks.com/post/42919958644/dolphin-handshake
You may want to rethink your piece. Everything AND MORE that you charged the dolphins with, MAN does. So welcome to this a$$hole’s world a$$hole. Best regards,
Just one quibble–I really feel strongly that we should not use the word rape to describe behavior in non-human animals. Forced copulation in animals is NOT the same as rape in humans. These two terms are not synonymous. We know that rape causes major psychological trauma in humans; we don’t know that about ducks or dolphins or insects. There is already a trend to use the word rape to describe…pretty much anything uncomfortable.
I think we devalue the horror of the word by using it on non-humans.
The word “rape” also has moral connotations, and I think most of us would agree that non-human organisms cannot be moral agents.
Most of these behaviors have also been observed in humans – except, possibly, using a baby shark as a volleyball.
Since I am human and not dolphin, I have no worries of being raped by a dolphin. Although a dolphin may attempt to rape a human, this has happened only in captive “swim with dolphin” parks, which are evil in of themselves. And being female, I need not worry about being murdered by a dolphin, as dolphins murder only males..particularly if the male is your boyfriend and you are swimming in the ocean with him. Wild dolphins have rescued more peeps than they’ve injured, although this is also a rare occurence. So I shall have no problem sleeping tonight, counting dolphins. I love you my dolphin cousins of the sea!
And please boycott captive dolphin swims/shows.
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Oh. My. GOD! Dolphin Rape!!!!! I can’t believe that they grab people with their own dildos… wait… this only says bad stuff about boy dolphins. what’s so bad about the females?!? >:(
nice….. absolutely NOTHING wrong with girl dolphins. I showed this site to my cousin Damian yesterday, and he cried. he loves dolphins. thank you SO MUCH for destroying a child’s dreams! and why’d you have to put up a picture of a dolphin vaj? I had to explain that to Damian. who is – FYI – 7YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!
Dolphins are assholes.