occasionally, dolphins can be spotted, or even whales, as they migrate through the region around the cagarras islands, straight across from ipanema.with rare variation, the dolphins in rio de janeiro are of a single species, the typical short-beaked mammal called delphinus delphis, - they populate the waters spanning from rio de janeiro to uruguay.

prainha beach, in arraial do cabo, gained world-wide notoriety in 2012, when a school of dolphins chasing sardines suddenly got stranded on the sand, but were all successfully rescued and put back into the ocean by a group of lifeguards and beachgoers - and it was all captured on this video.