Dolphin

Dolphins were a type of Cetacean native to Earth. They were known for their intelligence.

Culture

Dolphins were roughly as intelligent as humans, but more playful and with a predatory mindset. (PDA: Island of Death) They were also a very quarrelsome species. They had more than three hundred words for insulting family members. (PDA: Storm Harvest) They liked to swim alongside boats. (DWM: Voyager)

History

While sailing in the Indian Ocean, the Third Doctor spent most of the trip talking with a pod of dolphins. When Sarah Jane Smith was pushed overboard, the Doctor got help from a passing family of orcas. (PDA: Island of Death)

Eventually, humans learned to communicate with dolphins. They were made translator units to talk with and robotic suits for travel on dry land. After the Earth became heavily polluted, many dolphins were moved to the poles, where it was cleaner. Dolphins also left the planet for ocean worlds like Coralee. As much as a quarter of the population of these worlds were dolphins. (PDA: Storm Harvest)

The Seventh Doctor and Mel once went to a research centre specialising in human-dolphin communication. There, they encountered a dolphin named Kawili'kai, accused of murdering the centre's human personnel. When the Doctor gave him a translator unit, he explained that the "murder" was self-defence. Fearful of humans, he was prepared to die to prevent wide-scale exploitation of dolphins on Earth. Before the conflict came to a deadly conclusion, a dolphin ambassador emerged from the Thames and began the difficult task of inter-species diplomacy. (ST: Driftwood)

The Eighth Doctor claimed to have once been served a bouillabaisse of dolphin brains somewhere in the Pacific Ocean in 1939. (BFA: The Next Life)

References to dolphins

While planning to take a sky shark to pull a carriage, the Eleventh Doctor stated, "Don't think shark, think dolphin". Abigail Pettigrew contradicted him, saying the two were nothing alike. (DW: A Christmas Carol)