Friend or Foe?
Its a gorgeous coastal day and while sitting at home in your living room, looking at your dolphin décor, you and your family decide to venture out to the beach. The water is warm and you go wade in and splash around. While you’re out enjoying the water, you all of a sudden see something swimming towards you and you begin to panic because all you see is a fin. How do you know if the fin coming towards you belongs to a friendly dolphin or a terrifying shark?
There are two easy ways to tell the difference just by looking at the fin. A dolphin’s dorsal fin is rounded at the top while a shark’s dorsal fin is straight. If the fin is too far away to see, or you are too panicked to notice, pay attention to the pattern of movement. Sharks swim in a back and forth motion, so the fin will be going from side to side. A dolphin though swims up and down, so often the fin will go underwater and then reappear again, or it will move in a straight line. Now that you know how to tell the difference in fins, you will be able to enjoy the ocean safely.