Once upon a time there was a daddy dolphin, who was getting on a bit but was still young at heart. He got together with the mummy dolphin and they had another baby. Iara has recently arrived at Zoomarine. Iara is the daughter of Sam, the oldest bottlenose dolphin in the world. Sam lives at Zoomarine and is 47 years old, but he still has the energy to procreate. The mother, Missy, aged 29, is delighted, along with all the staff at the Oceanographic Park. Iara was given a name of Tupi-guarani origin – which means "lady of the waters" and "mother of the waters".

The baby, as the name suggests, is a female, but in contrast with Alfa, the other female dolphin, which was born last October, Iara was born in a conventional manner.

Iara was born on 2nd April at 5.22 pm, after a labour lasting about two hours. She weighed 20 kilos and measured close to 1.20 metres.

She now weighs 45 kilos and measures 1.42 metres.

Alfa was the first dolphin to have been born in Portugal using artificial insemination, and the first in the world to have been born using frozen sperm, which was imported from the United States.

The technique was used by Zoomarine to avoid excessive consanguinity in the population of bottlenose dolphins living in captivity in the park in Guia, because cross-breeding among dolphins can lead to health problems in these animals.

source: Algarve Observer