It was a veritable Day of the Dolphin on Thursday Feb. 14, when a "super mega pod" of the finned mammals, measuring 35 square miles, was spotted off the coast of San Diego, Calif.
Because they normally travel in pods in numbers of 15 to 200, experts are baffled as to why the approximately 100,000 dolphins spotted were swimming together.
Captain Joe Dutra of Hornblower Cruises called in the sighting of the super mega pod at approximately noon, during his regular daily tour.
"They were coming from all directions," Dutra told NBC News, "you could see them from as far as the eye can see. I've seen a lot of stuff here ... but this is the biggest I've ever seen, ever."
Dutra estimates the pod ran at least seven miles long and five miles wide, confirming that he'd never seen anything comparable to the sight.
"You had to be there to experience it," says Dutra. "It was truly spectacular."
In the same NBC News piece, marine mammal expert Sarah Wilkin speculates that it's possible such a large congregation of dolphins was attracted to "plenty of food in the area, including sardines, herring and squid."
"They're attracted to kind of the same thing, they might wind up in the same place," says Wilkins.
Referring to dolphins as "social animals," Wilkin says "super-pods" are not unheard of, and that sometimes large schools come together.
Dutra, a longtime veteran of navigating the seas, says he felt fortunate to witness such a unique spectacle.
"While a pod of this size is considered a once-in-a-lifetime event, a similar situation was reported the same time last year," reports The Inquisitr. "An unspecified amount of dolphins was seen swimming about 65 miles off the San Diego coast. The massive pod could signal a previously undocumented migratory pattern."
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