The common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), or Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, is the most well-known species from the family Delphinidae.
Common bottlenose dolphins are the most familiar dolphins due to the wide exposure they receive in captivity in marine parks and dolphinaria, and in movies and television programs. The common bottlenose dolphin is the largest species of the beaked dolphins. They inhabit temperate and tropical oceans throughout the world, and are absent only from polar waters. Until recently, all bottlenose dolphins were considered as a single species, but now the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin and Burrunan dolphin have been split from the common bottlenose dolphin. While formerly named simply as the bottlenose dolphin, this term is now applied to the genus as a whole. The dolphins inhabit warm and temperate seas worldwide. As considerable genetic variation has been described among members of this species, even between neighboring populations, many experts consider that additional species may be recognized.
