Colodado = red.
Sorry, Hari Seldon. I should have addressed Mycroft Holmes post, rather than yours.
Well, if I check my Spanish-English dictionary, ‘red’ is indeed listed as ‘colorado’ also, but I think ‘rojo’ is used more often. And the Spanish ‘colorado’ is translated as either ‘red’ or ‘colored’, so I guess we’re both right. 
Mycroft Holmes, you are undoubtedly correct. My spanish isn’t very good.
Assuming that site is serious, I have a couple of problems with it. No, not its subejct matter but rather the content.
Right, they use the erect penis as an arm. This is also what gets people confused. There have been reports of misguided people running into the ocean because they think their local dolphin population wants to mate with them. Studies show that this is not the case. Chances are that because some dolphin was rubbing his penis on them he must be coming onto them. Sorry, no, that dolphin was using his erect penis as an arm!
Unfortunately, I don’t have a cite for this and Google returned a bunch of links that read like romance novels.
*ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old French daulfin, blend of daufin and Old Provençal dalfin, both from Medieval Latin
*dalfinus, from Latin delphnus, from Greek delphis, delphn-, from delphus, womb (from its shape). *
So from the Greek for womb, we get delphic, which refers to brotherly love. As in Philadelphia or the Lagid king Ptolemy Philadelphos ( the phila relates to philial and means sort of the same thing, but apparently delphi- has that connotation all on its own - have to ask a Greek scholar why that construction ).
From brotherly love>fraternal love>fraternization.
Dolphins were so named by the Greeks, because they were sea mammals that fraternized together.
It also refers to an ancient Greek naval weapon, but I think thatwas named after the animal.
As for why the Dorado ( and also the related Pompano - same genus, different species ) are referred to as “dolphins” or “dolphinfish”, your guess is as good as mine. I assume that some of the early guesses are close - the fish somehow suggested either the mammal or, perhaps, resembled one of the stylized heraldic symbols ( that I understand could be fish-like ) of dolphins used in Europe.
- Tamerlane
Crap, I did it again. That should have read “Chances are that because some dolphin was rubbing his penis on them they think he must be coming onto them.” Gotta pay more attention when I’m composing my posts.
The dolphinfish, dorado, or mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus and Coryphaena equisetis) is a large pelagic fast-swimming fish.
One of their favorite prey items is flying fish, which they will even pursue out of the water by jumping after them. They were called after the mammalian dolphin almost certainly because of this habit of jumping out of the water. The mammalian dolphin was named first. In the past, the fish was often referred to simply as “dolphin;” “fish” is usually now tacked on to avoid confusion.
The name “dorado,” Spanish for “golden,” comes from their golden-green color.
Nowadays they are almost called either dorado or mahi-mahi (of Polynesian origin) on restaurant menus so that people don’t get the idea they’re eating Flipper.
PS. “Colorado” in Spanish basically means “colored,” but can also used to mean red because that is the most vibrant color. “Rojo” is a more specific word for red. Pink is “rosado” or “rosa.”
[Hi-Jack] Am I correct in thinking that the killer whale is more dolphin than whale? [/the pilot would like to announce that we have resumed full control once more]
Not really. “Whale,” “dolphin,” and “porpoise” are not really precies scientific terms. Whale generally is used for larger cetaceans, regardless whether they are members of the baleen whales (blue, humpback, right, bowhead, etc.) or toothed whales (orcas/killer whales, dolphins, porpoises, and sperm whale.)
“Porpoise” tends to be used for smaller, shorter-beaked species of toothed whales. “Dolphin” is generally used for medium-sized species in several different families.
General: The reason for the naming problem is very simple - until relatively recently, people didn’t make any distinction between dolphins/porpoises and any other “fish” (i.e. something that has fins, swims in the ocean, and is not a whale or a shark). It just wasn’t that important a distinction to them. Thus “hey that fish is jumping like a dolphin, so let’s assume it’s pretty much the same thing,” didn’t conflict with “He may be jumping, but he’s no Flipper.”
Smam: Yes, a Killer Whale is more closely related to dolphins than most large whales, particularly the baleen whales. It’s pretty obvious if you think about it: almost all large whales are filter-feeders, which separates killer whales from them right there. Of the large whales, the sperm whale is the only really prominent example of a predator, and even they aren’t terribly closely related to orcas.
A killer whale may be more closely related to dolphins than to the largest whales (except the sperm whale), but it is relatively closely related to pilot whales, beluga whales, beaked whales, bottlenose whales, etc, etc.
Yep, my understanding is that Sperm Whales have been shown to be closer genetically to the Baleen Whales than the Toothed Whales.
There is a supposed division between the “True Porpoises” ( family Phocoenidae - only six species ) and the “Marine Dolphins” ( family Delphinidae - 30-odd species ) based on tooth-type among other things, but that is after the fact assignments by taxonomists I’m pretty sure. Like Colibri pointed out, porpoise vs. dolphin is really more a body-shape descriptor and predates any formal taxonomy ( porpoise means “swine fish” and refers to their squattish body shape ).
- Tamerlane
Wow, interesting posts, everyone. Thanks a lot.
That’s interesting. I’d believed that “dolphin” and “porpoise” were almost interchangable terms(the only difference being one has a “snout” and the other doesn’t)…until I read this week that harbor porpoises are one of the smallest types of toothed whale. So is Flipper can be called a small whale too then?
Dolphin and porpoise are interchangeable in common usage.
Porpoise is also used to refer to Phocoenidae, the porpoise family, while dolphin is used to refer to several other families. Not all dolphins have the prominent snout.
A distinction is often made between toothed whales and baleen whales, and under that distinction, flipper is a small toothed whale.
My speculation is that since the dorado (or mahi mahi) is a flying fish, and leaped on ship’s decks, they were given the nickname “dolphon.” I remember ordering them in a Barbados hotel restaurant in 1972, long before mahi mahi became a popular menu item in the U.S. My parents (I was 14 at the time) were wondering what I was doing. It passed their taste test.
Remember the old calypso song “Jamaica Farewell.” The lyrics “acki, rice, flying fish are nice.” Well that’s the same fish.
Zombie mahi-mahi jump but are not flying fish, or even informally called flying fish. They eat flying fish.
Zombie mahi-mahi are not called “dorado.” Dorado is the gilt-edge sea bream, sold as “daurade” nowadays because it tastes classier that way.
Salt fish.
Lyrics
Harry Belafonte