FunNature & AnimalKiller whales learn to communicate with dolphins

Killer whales learn to communicate with dolphins

The sounds that most animals use to communicate – barking, bellowing, meowing – are innate , not learned. However, some species, including our own, are capable of imitating new sounds and using them in appropriate social contexts.

 

This ability, known as vocal learning, is one of the foundations of language and has also been detected in bats, some birds, and cetaceans, including whales and dolphins. But while researchers have attributed vocal learning in songbirds to specific nerve pathways, studying these traits in marine mammals was challenging for science.

 

Recently, two researchers , Whitney Musser, from the University of San Diego, and Ann Bowles, from the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, have discovered that orcas ( Orcinus orca ), also known as killer whales, can cooperate with other species thanks to vocal learning. . Specifically with bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops truncatus ), whose sound they learn to imitate to get closer to their interlocutors. Their study, published in the Journal of the Acoustic Society of America, suggests that vocal imitation can facilitate social interactions between cetaceans.

 

Killer whales have complex vocal repertoires made up of hisses and screams, short repetitions of loud bursts interspersed with silences. The acoustic characteristics of these vocalizations, their pattern of duration, tone and pulse, vary between different social groups. Individuals who are closely related or live together produce similar call beats that include different vocal characteristics for their group, as if it were a tribal dialect, which implies that they are capable of learning sounds. “Some orcas share territory with bottlenose dolphins,” says Bowles.

 

By comparing old recordings of vocalization patterns with recordings of killer whales and dolphins in common groups, Bowles and his team were able to assess the degree to which orcas learned vocal patterns from their social partners. Three killer whales that lived with dolphins for several years changed the tones of the different types of calls in their repertoire to match those of the dolphins . The researchers also found evidence that killer whales can learn entirely new sounds: An orca that lived with dolphins learned to produce a sequence of chirps that human caretakers had taught to a pool companion dolphin, before they were introduced.

 

Vocal learning abilities alone do not mean that killer whales possess language in the same way as humans, but they do indicate a high level of neural plasticity, the ability to change circuits in the brain to incorporate new information. In addition, there are compelling reasons to study the vocal patterns of marine mammals, which are highly threatened by human activities – entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships, exposure to pollutants and oil spills, and habitat reduction due to climate change. .

 

 

What are the real impacts of a golf course?

Although it may seem that golf is a sport closely linked to natural spaces, it actually has a great impact on the environment.

When hyenas lived in the Arctic

These animals crossed from Asia to America through the Bering Bridge during the Ice Age.

The South American firefly, a new invasive species in Spain?

Initially it was identified as a new species of firefly, although it was soon seen that, in fact, it had been brought by the human hand from Argentina.

NASA discovers more than 50 areas that emit exorbitant levels of greenhouse gases

NASA's 'EMIT' spectrometer locates has targeted Central Asia, the Middle East and the US among others.

Scientists identify the exact number of hamburgers you can eat without destroying the Earth

A new report highlights how much we should reduce our meat consumption per week to prevent the climate crisis from worsening.

More