LOOK: How Do Dolphins Handle The Texas Heat? A Color Change Tells Us
Ah summer in Texas. Where everything turns tan due to the sun absolutely bearing down on us and just making us dislike the season for a long while. But let's go back to the mention of everything changing colors shall we?
Besides us turning a little bit redder due to the temps in the triple digits, other items in the state are affected by the blazing heat. The grass just looks sad when it doesn't rain for an extended period of time. But what about the animals in the state that put up with the heat in the state?
Both land and sea animals have different ways of making their own way through the sweltering Texas summers. We turn to the sea to focus on one particular animal.
Dolphins And Their Way Of Dealing With Texas Summers
Let's take a look at the Texas waters to see how our fish friends are able to deal with the Texas summer months. As you can you see, we'll taking a peek at dolphins, and more specifically, their bellies. Have you ever seen a pink bellied dolphin?
Before we go any further, we promise we're aren't making this up, as a fellow Texas discovered this phenomenon:
Wow, a pink dolphin! Is this a sort of rare animal only a few get to see? Well, actually no. Truth is, the dolphin has to do this.
According to The Messenger, our friends in the water turn pink to help with in dealing with body temps. National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration member and administrator Dr. Erin Fougères, when interviewed said:
"Dolphins' bellies turn pink as a way to dump excess heat when they're active...It is called vasodilation and it permits blood to flow within the peripheral arteries and diffuse heat into the cooler environment."
Personally, this does raise a rather interesting question now, do dolphins get sunburnt? As it turns out, they do!