The Boto dolphin (Inia geoffrensis), inhabits the Amazon basin and part of the Orinoco river basin, so it has a wide variety of species available to eat, although it prefers fish since it feeds on more than 43 types, including the feared piranhas. Complementary this dolphin also eats crabs and turtles.

It consumes about 2.5% of its body weight daily.

Bottlenose dolphins diet consists mainly of small fish with occasional squid, crabs, shrimp, and other smaller animals.

Their teeth are not used to chew the food. When they find a shoal of fish, dolphins work as a team to keep the fish close together and maximize the intake. They also search for fish alone. Sometimes dolphins employ “fish whacking” where a fish is stunned (and sometimes thrown out of the water) with the fluke to catch and eat the fish easier especially when dealing with large specimens.

In some Mediterranean areas sometimes there is a conflict between common Bottlenose Dolphins and small-scale commercial fisheries looking for the same prey. Common Bottlenose Dolphins are probably attracted to fishing nets because they make easier for dolphins eat from a concentrated food source.

Spinner dolphins eat several kinds of fish, jellyfish, squid, krill and some types of snails that lack the shell.

Although spinner dolphins gather in small groups for hunting, they remain coordinated with sounds and the usual whistles.

They usually submerge from 250 to 1,000 meters deep to hunt their prey. Eels, shrimp, and lanternfish (myctophids) also complement their diet.

Pacific white-sided dolphins inhabit the temperate waters of the Pacific Ocean from Baja California, Mexico to Alaska. Therefore it eats some of the common species of fish in these regions. Among them, herring, sardines, salmon, anchovies, squid and some other small fishes.

This dolphin consumes about 9 kg of food every day and can be organized into groups to chase and ambush fish to eat more efficiently.

The food that dolphins eat is different for each species.
While some dolphins eat fishes like herring, cod or mackerel, some others eat squids or other cephalopods.

Even more, large dolphins like killer whales, eat marine mammals like seals or sea lions and sometimes even turtles.

Usually, the amount of fish that they eat depends on the kind of fish that they hunt. While mackerels or herrings have a lot of fat, squids do not have much fat, therefore, to get the energy required for their activities, dolphins have to eat more of the latter.

On average, a dolphin with a weight of 200 – 250 Kg will eat between 10 Kg to 25 Kg of fish every day.

Usually, to hunt fish, some species of dolphins use a method called herding which is a cooperative hunting performed by a pod where some of them surround a school of fish to compress them as much as possible, while some others take turns to eat through the compacted school of fish.

Another method is corralling where dolphins take fish to shallow waters where they cannot escape.

Some species catch larger fish by hitting them with their tails to stun them and in the case of killer whales, they

Therefore the question about what do dolphins eat has to be answered for every species in particular.

In this video, you can watch a pod of dolphins working together to feed themselves and using the technique called herding to catch the fish as they surround the school of fish, and then some of them take turns to eat.

In the video, you can learn more about What do dolphins eat.