National Treasure Fungie Was Wounded By Storm Ophelia
The unstoppable force of nature off the coast of Dingle is another casualty of storm Ophelia. The iconic dolphin has lived in Dingle Bay since what feels like the beginning of time, 1983 to be precise, and was wounded by Monday's ferocious storm.
The Facebook page 'Fungie Forever Photo's Of The Dingle Dolphin' shared a picture of Fungie with noticeable scars across the dolphin's face.
Information was included about the gruesome discovery but it is unknown what caused the dolphin's marks:
...The day after Ophelia.... An exceptional, wonderfully sunny and calm day.. But Ophelia left a a few 'marks' on dear old Fungie... You might say he has a few more beautymarks now... Two cuts... They do not look too serious and we know how fast dolphin skin heals... so we are quite positive this will just leave some scars... Fungie is fine.
Fans of the dolphin breathed a sigh of relief and left comments like "heal quickly" and "so glad you survived the storm." Although Fungie has been left scarred, naysayers who believe there's actually more than one dolphin in Dingle will now be able to definitively see that there's only one Fungie by the new 'beauty marks' on his face.
Fungie is estimated to be somewhere around 40 years. The life expectancy of a bottlenose is somewhere around 40 to 50 years old but there are male bottlenose dolphins who have reached the ages of 57 and females as old as 63.
Fingers crossed Fungie will stick around for another few years at least.