It is already known that dolphins are talkative animals and, like humans, emit multiple sounds to socialize and, where appropriate, also to orient themselves underwater through echolocation. Now, an experiment conducted by zoologists at the Dolphins Plus Institute and the University of the South Mississippi suggests that the “Delfin” language is even more sophisticated than previously thought.
The scientists recorded the conversations of six bottlenose dolphins (the most common species) in captivity as they faced a challenge: getting the food stored in a closed can that was opened when they simultaneously pulled two strings at the ends. After 24 attempts, only two of the cetaceans found the solution, although the coordinated action of the couple succeeded no less than 20 times.
But what was really interesting was to analyze afterwards the cetacean chatter recorded throughout the experiment. Thus, they were able to verify that the two dolphins that opened the can emitted triple the number of vocalizations while executing this task than their other four congeners or themselves when they were not trying to solve the puzzle.
The researchers describe the peculiar clicks they made as “bursts of pulses,” and they were only noticeable when the couple opened the can collaboratively. When they did it alone, they were practically speechless, indicating that the “pulse burst” is a special type of communication that dolphins use to bring teamwork to fruition.
If we had a “dolphin-human” automatic translator, the dialogue could be something like: “You put yourself there and pull the string!” “Okay, I got it! At one o’clock, at two…! ”.
