r/mermaids • u/Nango_chips • 6d ago

So if dolphins were merfolk would they be considered apart of it or no

This is a question that has been bothering me for some time now😓This also applies to other animals like whales, etc. This doesn't apply to seals or otters or other sorts of animals because they don't necessarily live in the water. But anyways, if dolphins were merfolk would they be considered one, or no because they still need air to breathe😭Just wondering! Because mermaids are a mix between fish and human, and since dolphins also has some of those fish features like their tail, etc would they be considered one? Or just no.

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u/OldiOS7588 6d ago

Hard to say, since dolphins are pretty lively and intelligent animals, they could be considered part of the merfolk as like pets, like we do with cats and dogs! Others though can just be considered as prey or as wild animals like whales for examples, they are way to big to be part of the merfolk and maybe just viewed as wild animals

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u/UnderseaWitch 6d ago

Technically, the way this hypothetical is posited ("If dolphins were merfolk would they be considered merfolk") necessarily requires an answer of "yes." However, if what the question is meant to ask is "If merfolk were real, would dolphins be considered merfolk?" Then I would say the answer is no. Merfolk generally are considered as intelligent/sentient as humans and we don't consider dolphins on that same level. It may be uncomfortably close, like with monkeys/chimps/apes/etc to humans but I don't see how dolphins would suddenly be elevated to a human level if there were people who lived in the water.

I'm sure NASA disagrees.

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u/Nango_chips 6d ago

Yeah but im talking about different species of mermaids for example I mean look at Ursula she's an octopus or squid mermaid😓So I mean the same thing for dolphins. I'm questioning about this because dolphins aren't necessarily fish or breathe in the water

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u/UnderseaWitch 6d ago

Pretty sure the term "merfolk" exists to describe any aquatic animal you throw a human torso on. But now you've got me imagining whale-sized mermaids and that's terrifying.

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u/mnemnexa 6d ago

Merfolk were called "half fish, half human" during a time when anything aquatic was considered a fish. Dolphins were called fish, as were whales and killer whales. It may ease your mind to imagine that merfolk, had they existed, could have been entirely mammals. Their lower portions could have been dolphin-like and entirely mammalian. As for the water-breathing, it was once thought that aquatic mammals breathed underwater.

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u/SLAUGHTERGUTZ 6d ago

It's fantasy.  Therefore, it's up to the fantasy writer. 

Princess Azuri was a short American manga about an orca mermaid that breathes air. There were also water-breathing mermaids in the story as well.