What Do Dolphins Eat

Short answer

• Dolphins are carnivores. Most dolphins eat fish, squid, and crustaceans such as shrimp and crabs, and the exact menu depends on the species, the habitat, and what prey is available at the time. Bottlenose dolphins eat a wide mix of fish, squid, and crustaceans. Orcas, the largest members of the dolphin family, have the most varied diet of all, but individual orca populations specialize: some eat mainly salmon, while others hunt seals, sea lions, and other marine mammals. Spinner dolphins feed at night on small fish, shrimp, and squid that rise from deep water, and Amazon river dolphins eat dozens of species of freshwater fish plus crabs and river turtles. Dolphins do not chew their food. They grip prey with their teeth and swallow it whole, usually head first.

A Hunter, Not a Grazer

The reality is different. Every dolphin is a predator, and a skilled one. Dolphins hunt alone and in groups, they chase, herd, trap, and ambush their prey, and some populations pass their hunting techniques from mother to calf the way human families pass on recipes. Understanding what a dolphin eats is therefore not just a list of prey animals. It is a window into how dolphins live: where they travel, how they cooperate, how they use sound, and how they adapt when the ocean around them changes.

The dolphin family is large and varied. Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a conservation organization that works on whales and dolphins, notes that there are more than 40 species of dolphin, living in environments that range from freshwater rivers and estuaries to coastal waters and the deep open ocean. That range is the first clue to the diet question. A dolphin that hunts in a muddy river cannot eat the same prey as a dolphin that hunts in the open Pacific, and a dolphin that weighs as much as a small car cannot eat the same meals as one that weighs less than a person. There is no single dolphin diet. There are many, shaped by species, size, habitat, season, and age.

The Short List: What Most Dolphins Eat

If the whole dolphin family had to be summed up in one sentence, it would be this: dolphins eat fish, squid, and crustaceans. Fish are the staple for most species. Squid and octopus, both cephalopods, matter most for dolphins that hunt in deeper or open water. Crustaceans, including shrimp and crabs, round out the diet, especially for coastal dolphins that forage near the seafloor. Some dolphins also take jellyfish and krill, and river dolphins add freshwater crabs and small turtles to the list.

The balance between those groups shifts from species to species and from place to place, and that is where the interesting detail lives. A coastal bottlenose dolphin rooting around a bay eats a different mix than an offshore dolphin chasing squid in deep water, even though both belong to the same species.

What Bottlenose Dolphins Eat

The bottlenose dolphin is the species most people picture when they hear the word dolphin, and it is also one of the best studied marine mammals in the wild. NOAA Fisheries, the United States agency that manages marine life, describes bottlenose dolphins as animals that thrive in many environments and feed on a variety of prey, such as fish, squid, and crustaceans, including crabs and shrimp. That variety is the point. Bottlenose dolphins are generalists, and their diet tracks local abundance closely.

In coastal and inshore waters, bottlenose dolphins tend to eat fish and bottom dwelling invertebrates. In offshore waters, they tend to eat fish and squid. Some offshore dolphins have been found with deep sea fish in their stomachs, evidence that they may dive to more than 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) to feed. The specific fish on the menu depend on location. Whale and Dolphin Conservation notes that bottlenose dolphins living in the Moray Firth in Scotland favor salmon when it is available in spring and summer, then switch to herring and mackerel in winter when salmon is scarce. Elsewhere, favored local fish can include mullet, mackerel, catfish, and more tropical species. The pattern is the same everywhere: eat what the local water offers.

Bottlenose dolphins also show strong preferences for certain food fish, and individuals within a population may specialize. That flexibility is part of why the species does well in so many habitats, from harbors, bays, and estuaries to the open ocean.

What Common Dolphins Eat

Short beaked common dolphins are open ocean hunters that feed in pods, often large ones. The Aquarium of the Pacific, an aquarium and marine education institution in California, describes their diet simply: common dolphins feed on schooling fish and cephalopods like squid, and they are often seen feeding alongside tuna and diving birds. That last detail matters, because it shows how common dolphins hunt. They do not work alone. They join mixed feeding groups in which tuna drive fish upward from below, diving birds attack from above, and dolphins herd the school from the sides. The same institution notes that common dolphins have learned to work with schools of tuna to trap and ambush schooling fish.

Common dolphins live in the open ocean, and the Aquarium of the Pacific gives their habitat depth range as 198 to 1,981 meters (650 to 6,500 feet). Their prey reflects that life: fast moving schooling fish such as sardines, anchovies, and herring, plus squid. It is a diet built for speed and teamwork, suiting an animal that lives in large, energetic groups, sometimes numbering in the hundreds.

What Spinner Dolphins Eat

Spinner dolphins have one of the most distinctive feeding schedules of any dolphin: they hunt at night. NOAA Fisheries reports that spinner dolphins feed at night on small fish, shrimp, and squid found about 650 to 1,000 feet below the surface. Their prey follows a daily migration, staying in deep water during the day and then moving up in the water column and toward shore at night. Spinner dolphins take advantage of that nightly migration, feeding throughout the night on prey that has come to shallower depths and closer to shore.

This is a neat solution to a deep water problem. The small fish and squid that spinner dolphins eat live too deep to hunt efficiently during the day, when they sit hundreds of feet down. At night, those same animals rise toward the surface, and the dolphins meet them there. By day, spinner dolphins rest in sheltered, shallow bays, saving energy for the next night’s hunt. Their diet is therefore tied to a rhythm: deep by day for the prey, shallow by night for the hunt, and rest in the bay in between.

What Dusky Dolphins Eat

Dusky dolphins are southern hemisphere dolphins that hunt in large, cooperative groups. Whale and Dolphin Conservation describes their diet as shrimp, squid, and various fish, including tiny anchovies. Dusky dolphins are known for herding anchovies into tight balls and then taking turns feeding, a style of group hunting that suits schooling prey. Like common dolphins, they benefit from numbers: a school of fish that is scattered is hard to catch one by one, but a school herded into a dense ball can feed many dolphins in turn.

What Amazon River Dolphins Eat

River dolphins show how far the dolphin diet can stretch. The Amazon river dolphin, also called the boto, lives in freshwater rivers, channels, and flooded forests, and its diet is one of the broadest of any toothed whale. Published summaries of stomach content research describe a diet of more than 50 species of fish, including piranhas, catfish, tetras, and cichlids, plus freshwater crabs and river turtles. Whale and Dolphin Conservation similarly notes that Amazon river dolphins eat more than 40 different species of freshwater fish along with freshwater crustaceans.

Two features of river life shape this diet. First, the Amazon floods every year, and when the water rises into the forest, fish spread out into places that are hard to hunt. The boto’s diet becomes more diverse in the wet season, when prey is scattered, and more selective in the dry season, when falling water concentrates fish into channels and lakes. Second, the boto’s teeth are unusual: the front teeth grip slippery fish, while the flatter back teeth can crush the shells of crabs and turtles. That combination lets one animal take both soft bodied fish and hard shelled prey, which is why its menu is so long.

Other river dolphins follow a similar pattern in their own rivers, eating the freshwater fish, crustaceans, and small aquatic animals that share their habitat. The principle is the same as in the ocean, only the water is fresh and murky, and echolocation matters even more, because vision is of little use in a muddy river.

What Orcas Eat: The Biggest Dolphin, the Widest Menu

Orcas, also called killer whales, are the largest members of the dolphin family, and NOAA Fisheries states that, taken as a whole, the species has the most varied diet of all cetaceans. But that headline hides the real story, which is specialization. Different orca populations usually specialize in their foraging behavior and diet, and NOAA Fisheries states that diet is primarily determined by the culture, meaning the learned hunting tactics, of each ecotype.

Resident orcas in the Pacific Northwest eat fish, mainly salmon. Southern Resident orcas, the endangered population that ranges from central California to southeast Alaska, prefer Chinook salmon, some populations of which are themselves threatened or endangered. Transient orcas, also called Bigg’s killer whales, eat a very different menu: their diets are more varied and can include squid and other marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, porpoises, dolphins, and other whale species. Offshore orcas, the third ecotype, eat fish, including sharks.

The contrast between residents and transients is one of the clearest examples of learned diet in the animal kingdom. Both types live in the same ocean, sometimes in overlapping waters, yet they eat almost entirely different food, hunt with different techniques, and live in different social groups. A resident orca does not simply decide to eat a seal one day, because hunting seals requires tactics, timing, and teamwork that its family never taught it. Diet, for orcas, is culture.

Orcas elsewhere follow the same pattern of local specialization. Some populations hunt penguins and seabirds, and others take larger whales. The species as a whole eats nearly everything, but each population eats what it has learned to catch.

Diet by Habitat: Coast, Open Ocean, and River

Looking at dolphin diets by habitat, rather than by species, reveals a second pattern. Coastal dolphins eat fish and bottom dwelling invertebrates, because that is what coastal water offers: fish that live near the shore, crabs and shrimp on the seafloor, and prey that can be trapped against sand bars, seawalls, and mud banks. Offshore dolphins eat fish and squid, because the open ocean offers schooling fish in midwater and squid in the deep. River dolphins eat freshwater fish, crabs, and turtles, because that is what rivers offer.

Depth matters too. Dolphins that hunt in deep water take prey that coastal dolphins never meet, such as deep sea fish and large squid. Dolphins that hunt at night take prey that rises from the deep after dark, as spinner dolphins do. And dolphins that hunt in shallow, murky water rely more on sound than sight, because their eyes cannot help them much there. Habitat decides the menu, and dolphins are flexible enough to adjust when the menu changes.

How Dolphins Find Food: Echolocation

Dolphins do not find most of their food by sight. They find it by sound. NOAA Fisheries notes that bottlenose dolphins use passive listening and high frequency echolocation to locate prey. Echolocation works like this: the dolphin produces rapid clicks, the sound travels through the water, bounces off objects, and returns as echoes. From those echoes, the dolphin can judge the location, size, shape, and movement of what is ahead, even in dark or murky water where eyes are useless.

Echolocation is especially important for river dolphins hunting in muddy water, for spinner dolphins hunting at night, and for any dolphin chasing fish buried in sand. It also lets dolphins hunt cooperatively in low visibility, because each animal can track both the prey and its pod mates by sound. Sound is a dolphin’s main hunting sense, and its diet depends on it.

How Dolphins Hunt

Finding prey is only half the job. Catching it is the other half, and dolphins have invented an impressive range of techniques.

Herding is the most common. Bottlenose dolphins work together to herd fish into groups, then take turns charging through the school to feed, according to NOAA Fisheries. They may also trap schools of fish against sand bars and seawalls, where the fish have nowhere to escape. In open water, a group sometimes encircles a large school and herds it into a small, dense mass, then the dolphins take turns charging through it.

Strand feeding is a bolder version of the same idea. Dolphins herd schools of fish against sand bars, shorelines, or mud banks to trap them in shallow water, then surge partly out of the water to grab the stranded fish before sliding back in on the next wave. This technique has been documented in bottlenose dolphins in places such as the southeastern United States.

Mud ring feeding is a Florida specialty. Dolphins swim around a school of mullet while beating the seafloor with their tails, creating a ring of mud that surrounds the fish. Panicked fish leap out of the water to escape the mud, and the waiting dolphins catch them in midair. It is a striking example of a local technique: it works in shallow, muddy water with mullet, and it would be useless in deep water or with different prey.

Other bottlenose techniques include pinwheeling, in which dolphins at Sarasota Bay, Florida, roll to their sides with one pectoral flipper raised and splash their tail flukes to bunch fish tighter; crater feeding, in which a dolphin dives snout first into sandy bottom to grab a hidden fish; and kerplunking, in which dolphins slap the water’s surface with their lower body and flukes to startle fish out of hiding in shallow sea grass beds.

Sponging is the most famous tool use in dolphins. Some coastal bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia, carry a marine sponge on their beaks while foraging on the seafloor. Researchers theorize that the sponge protects the beak from spines, sharp shells, or rocks as the dolphin probes the sandy bottom for hidden fish. The behavior has been seen mainly in a small number of females and some of their female offspring at Shark Bay, and it appears to be passed from mother to daughter, another case of diet shaped by learning.

Orcas hunt as a team on a larger scale. NOAA Fisheries notes that killer whales often use a coordinated hunting strategy, working as a team to catch prey. That teamwork is what lets transients take seals and sea lions, and what lets some populations hunt animals much larger than any single orca could handle alone.

One detail applies to nearly all of this hunting: dolphins do not chew. NOAA Fisheries states that instead of using their teeth to chew, bottlenose dolphins grip fish with their teeth, then swallow the fish whole, head first, so the spines of the fish do not catch in their throats. Before eating large fish, bottlenose dolphins may shake them or rub them on the ocean floor until suitable size pieces break off, and they may strip meat from spiny fish to reduce the chance of injury. Teeth are for gripping and handling, not for chewing.

How Much Do Dolphins Eat

How much a dolphin eats depends on its size, its species, and its stage of life, so there is no single daily total for all dolphins. For bottlenose dolphins, an educational summary from SeaWorld reports that adults eat approximately 4 percent to 6 percent of their body weight in food per day, while a nursing mother’s daily intake is considerably higher, about 8 percent. Those percentages translate into a large daily catch for a big animal, and they explain why dolphins spend so much of their day hunting. A dolphin that must eat a twentieth of its body weight every day cannot afford many empty hours.

Energy needs also explain why diet quality matters as much as quantity. Fish rich in fat provide more energy per catch than lean prey, which is one reason some dolphins prefer oily fish such as herring and mackerel when they are available. Nursing mothers face the highest energy demands of all, because they must feed themselves and produce milk for a calf, and their higher intake reflects that double burden.

How Diet Changes Across a Lifetime

A dolphin’s diet changes as it grows, and the first food of every dolphin’s life is not fish at all. It is milk. Bottlenose calves nurse for approximately 20 months, according to NOAA Fisheries, and generally stay with their mothers for 3 to 6 years. Killer whale calves nurse exclusively for at least a year, and spinner dolphins lactate often for 1 to 2 years. During the nursing period, the calf’s entire nutrition comes from its mother, and it begins to sample solid food only gradually, often by playing with or mouthing prey that its mother has caught.

Juvenile dolphins then face a long apprenticeship. They must learn to echolocate effectively, to recognize prey, to hunt alone and in groups, and to master the local techniques of their population, whether that means herding, strand feeding, sponging, or seal hunting. Much of that learning comes from watching and following their mothers and other pod members, which is why diet and culture are so closely linked in dolphins. A young orca that grows up in a salmon eating family learns salmon hunting. A young bottlenose dolphin in Shark Bay may learn sponging from its mother, if its mother is a sponger.

Adult dolphins eat the full adult diet, and their prey may shift again as they age, gain experience, or move to new waters. Pregnant and nursing females eat more, as noted above. The overall arc is consistent: milk first, learning second, and a full hunting life after that, with intake rising and falling with the demands of reproduction and the seasons.

How Diet Changes With Season and Place

Dolphins do not eat the same thing all year. Seasonal change in prey is one of the strongest forces on a dolphin’s diet. The Moray Firth bottlenose dolphins described earlier switch from salmon in spring and summer to herring and mackerel in winter, following the fish, not a fixed menu. Migrating fish bring feasts that last weeks, and dolphins time their movements and grouping to meet them.

Flood cycles drive a similar pattern in rivers. When Amazonian rivers flood, fish spread into the forest, and the boto’s diet broadens. When waters fall, fish concentrate, and the diet narrows to the most available species. Ocean currents, water temperature, and the rise and fall of prey populations all push dolphin diets one way or another through the year.

What Dolphins Do Not Eat

Dolphins do not eat plants. They are carnivores, and seaweed or algae is not part of their diet. Dolphins do not chew their food, as explained above, and much of the water they need comes from their prey and from metabolic water. Dolphins also do not eat just one kind of fish. Even the most specialized populations, such as salmon eating resident orcas, eat more than one species within their specialty, and most dolphins are far more varied than that.

It is also worth noting what dolphins are not: they are not indiscriminate eaters. The idea that a dolphin will eat anything it meets is wrong. Dolphins are selective about prey size, because prey must fit the mouth and throat, selective about prey type, because some animals are hard to catch or low in energy, and selective about hunting method, because each technique works only on certain prey in certain places. Opportunistic does not mean careless.

Why a Dolphin’s Diet Matters

A dolphin’s diet matters beyond curiosity, because dolphins sit near the top of ocean food webs, and what they eat reflects the health of the water around them. When a preferred prey fish declines, dolphins that depend on it feel the loss quickly, as Southern Resident orcas have with Chinook salmon. When prey shifts because of warming water, changing currents, or overfishing, dolphin diets shift too, and those shifts can be read as signals about the wider ocean.

Diet also shapes dolphin society. Cooperative hunting requires communication, coordination, and trust, and populations that hunt together tend to stay together. Techniques passed from mother to calf create traditions that can last generations. In that sense, what a dolphin eats is not just fuel. It is part of how dolphin culture works, and it helps explain why two groups of the same species can live such different lives in the same ocean.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do dolphins eat most often?

Fish, above all. Most dolphins eat fish as their staple food, plus squid and crustaceans such as shrimp and crabs. The exact mix depends on the species and the habitat.

What do bottlenose dolphins eat?

Bottlenose dolphins eat a wide variety of fish, squid, and crustaceans, including crabs and shrimp, according to NOAA Fisheries. Coastal bottlenose dolphins tend to eat fish and bottom dwelling invertebrates, while offshore bottlenose dolphins tend to eat fish and squid. Local favorites vary: mullet, mackerel, herring, and catfish are all reported in different populations.

What do orcas eat?

It depends on the population. Resident orcas in the Pacific Northwest eat fish, mainly salmon, with Southern Residents preferring Chinook salmon. Transient or Bigg’s orcas eat marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, porpoises, dolphins, and other whales, plus squid. Offshore orcas eat fish, including sharks. Orcas as a species have the most varied diet of all cetaceans, but each population specializes.

What do baby dolphins eat?

Baby dolphins drink their mother’s milk. Bottlenose calves nurse for approximately 20 months, killer whale calves nurse exclusively for at least a year, and spinner dolphins lactate for 1 to 2 years. Calves gradually begin to take solid food as they learn to hunt alongside their mothers.

Do dolphins eat squid?

Yes. Squid are an important food for many dolphins, especially offshore and deep water species. Bottlenose dolphins eat squid as part of a varied diet, spinner dolphins eat squid at night along with small fish and shrimp, and common dolphins eat cephalopods including squid.

Do dolphins chew their food?

No. Dolphins grip prey with their teeth and swallow it whole, usually head first, so that fish spines do not catch in the throat. Large fish may be shaken or rubbed on the seafloor to break them into suitable pieces first.

How do dolphins find food in dark or murky water?

They use echolocation. Dolphins produce clicks, listen to the returning echoes, and use them to locate, size, and track prey, even where vision is useless. NOAA Fisheries notes that bottlenose dolphins use passive listening and high frequency echolocation to locate prey.

Do dolphins eat the same thing all year?

No. Dolphin diets change with the seasons and with prey availability. Bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth eat salmon in spring and summer and switch to herring and mackerel in winter, and river dolphins change their diet with the annual flood cycle.

Do dolphins eat plants?

No. Dolphins are carnivores. Their diet is made up of animals: fish, squid, octopus, crustaceans, and, for some populations, marine mammals, turtles, and seabirds.

Sources & references

• NOAA Fisheries, Common Bottlenose Dolphin: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/common-bottlenose-dolphin
• NOAA Fisheries, Killer Whale: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/killer-whale
• NOAA Fisheries, Spinner Dolphin: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/spinner-dolphin
• Aquarium of the Pacific, Short-Beaked Common Dolphin: https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/short_beaked_common_dolphin
• Whale and Dolphin Conservation USA, What do dolphins eat?: https://us.whales.org/whales-dolphins/what-do-dolphins-eat/
• United Parks and Resorts (SeaWorld), All About Bottlenose Dolphins: Diet and Eating Habits: https://seaworld.org/animals/all-about/bottlenose-dolphin/diet/