Thursday, March 05, 2009

Pink Dolphins




Oh my goodness. I almost forgot all about the pink dolphins, until today. It my Yahoo! page (my homepage), 'pink dolphins' appeared as the 5th most searched topic in America today. How funny eh??

A few years back, a very pretty lady loved pink dolphins. Dunno if she's still as crazy about them now. (??) Sometimes, the IMU pharmacy team will comb shopping complexes and streets of KL just to locate any resemblance of the pink ones. I think even Petaling Street was thoroughly investigated.

I searched on this topic as well out of curiosity (pat kua).

Pink dolphins live in the Amazon River of South America. The river is 6000 kilometers long and touches 9 countries. They eat fish and crabs. They are widely known for their unusual coloring-- pink.

Pink dolphins have a lifespan of up to 40 years in the wild, but in captivity, the number is lowered down to about 4. A pink dolphin has never been successfully bred in captivity.

There are tons of tribes along the Amazon river, and there's a myth about the pink dolphin for each one. The Ticuna people believe the dolphins to be magical beings that used to be human. Other tribes believe the dolphins are symbols of good or evil. Some people believe that after sunset, the dolphins come out of the water, take human form, and have parties. Then they are said to go back underwater to cities where they wear sting rays for hats and snakes for belts.

No one knows why the dolphin is pink. They might get their coloring the same way a flamingo does-- from the food they eat. Some people think that the dolphin gets their coloring from the way blood rushes through their body. We might never know.

The pink dolphin is in serious danger of extinction. Some people actually hunt them for their eyes and teeth, which are supposed to have magical powers. Sometimes, oil-carrying ships sink in the river, spilling tons of oil into the water, and damaging sometimes a hundred miles of the river. Metal pollution can destroy the food chain, which the dolphin just happens to be on top of. The government controlling the Amazon lets people dump whatever they want into the river.

1 comment:

JehC said...

This dolphin is SO cute! People are hunting them for their teeth and eyes?!? That's the saddest thing ever!