A pod of dusky dolphins at Kaikoura, New Zealand

© Terry Whittaker/Alamy

A pod of dusky dolphins at Kaikoura, New Zealand

We’re celebrating National Dolphin Day by heading to the waters offshore from Kaikoura, New Zealand, where a pod of dusky dolphins is surfacing along South Island’s Pacific Coast. The ‘dusky’ descriptor comes from the dark gray, sometimes black coloring on the marine mammal’s back. Dusky dolphins are found only in the Southern Hemisphere.