Pregnancy is a drag for bottlenose dolphins
Thursday, November 24, 2011 - 14:10
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Lumbering around during the final weeks before delivery is tough for any pregnant mum. Most females adjust their movements to compensate for the extreme physical changes that accompany the later stages of pregnancy. However, no one had been able to find a distinct gait change - such as a change in stride length or frequency - associated with the latter stages of pregnancy. Intrigued by the ways that newborn dolphins learn to swim after birth, Shawn Noren from the Institute of Marine Science, University of California Santa Cruz, realised that she had the perfect opportunity to find out how pregnancy affects female dolphins...