The Adriatic Sea inhabits a population of the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) which is considered to be endangered and is legally protected. In the research of wild and especially protected animals, skull morphology plays an important role because it refers to biological characteristics such as species, population, sex and age. Due to adaptation to life in the water whales have undergone numerous morphological changes during evolution. In the skull area, these are asymmetry and telescopic growth, which include the elongation of the rostral bones and dorsorostral movement of the cranial bones. In order to gain insight into the growth of such skull, we examined the ossification stages of joints on 25 skulls of the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) from the Adriatic Sea hosted in the collection of the Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb. It has been noted that some of the joints in the neurocranial area had been ossified since the birth of the bottlenose dolphin and most of the remaining sutures begin to ossify after birth. Joints on the base of the skull are the ones that have the fastest rate of ossification which means that the closure of the ventral braincase is prior to closure of the dorsal. Most sutures follow the proper order of ossification. Sutures in female specimens seem to ossify faster, suggesting that female dolphins end their physical growth at an earlier age than males.