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Here is what the books say about Rough Toothed Dolphins: Rarely seen and poorly known, difficult to observe as may stay submerged for as long as 15 minutes. Rarely does more than a half-hearted breach. Most often found in deep water far offshore, usually beyond the continental shelf. We are here to say, THE BOOKS ARE WRONG!!!! We encountered the Rough Toothed Dolphins for the first time on December 5, 1999. We fell in love immediately. They act like no other dolphins we have ever met, moving slowly and gracefully and rafting (forming a long, straight line, shoulder to shoulder) with up to 20 dolphins at a time. They were extremely curious about us, riding our bow, jumping around our boat and swim right up to you under water. There is something incredibly special about the Rough Toothed Dolphins. Their sonar is like a wall of sound coming at you. When you swim with them and they come right up to you, looking into your eyes, you get a feeling of an incredibly wise, ancient being. I always feel like they have more of a whale energy than a dolphin energy. You get the sensation that instead of us trying to get to know them, they are trying to get to know us. Since our first meeting, we have encountered the Rough Toothed many, many times, and I always get the feeling that they have found us, not the other way around. So, I have stopped looking for them and let them appear when they are ready. The Rough Toothed have appeared to us all over the place, extremely close to shore, 10 miles offshore, right in the middle, south of our usual grounds, north of our usual grounds, they always surprise me when they appear. One time we were interacting with a big group of spotted dolphins, and all of sudden, right in the middle of all of them, appeared that famous Rough Tooth Raft. We jumped into the water for an incredible encounter with spotteds and rough toothed together! Oh, blissful day!
The Rough Toothed can have a slightly reptilian appearance due to the narrowness of the head and the unusually large eyes. Eats fish, squid and octopus and possibly molluscs. The Rough Toothed are named for a series of fine, vertical wrinkles on the enamel cap of each tooth. The Rough Toothed have white lips and can have yellowish white or pinkish white blotches.
