Whales and dolphins lead 'human-like lives' thanks to big brains, says study
[In] a new study, researchers compiled a list of the rich behaviours spotted in 90 different species of dolphins, whales and porpoises, and found that the bigger the species' brain, the more complex – indeed, the more "human-like" – their lives are likely to be.
This suggests that the "cultural brain hypothesis" – the theory that suggests our intelligence developed as a way of coping with large and complex social groups – may apply to whales and dolphins, as well as humans.
Writing in the journal, Nature Ecology and Evolution [DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0336-y] [DX], the researchers claim that complex social and cultural characteristics, such as hunting together, developing regional dialects and learning from observation, are linked to the expansion of the animals' brains – a process known as encephalisation.
The researchers gathered records of dolphins playing with humpback whales, helping fishermen with their catches, and even producing signature whistles for dolphins that are absent – suggesting the animals may even gossip. Another common behaviour was adult animals raising unrelated young. "There is the saying that 'it takes a village to raise a child' [and that] seems to be true for both whales and humans," said Michael Muthukrishna, an economic psychologist and co-author on the study at the London School of Economics.
Also at Newsweek.
Previously: Inter-species Communication Inches Closer
Dolphins Have a Language That Helps Them Solve Problems Together
Related Stories
A NewScientist article discusses how pattern recognition software is being used to help us better understand the communications of animals, including a program that can automatically translate dolphin whistles (but only if the meaning is already known):
IT was late August 2013 and Denise Herzing was swimming in the Caribbean. The dolphin pod she had been tracking for the past 25 years was playing around her boat. Suddenly, she heard one of them say, "Sargassum".
... She was wearing a prototype dolphin translator called Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) and it had just translated a live dolphin whistle for the first time.
It detected a whistle for sargassum, or seaweed, which she and her team had invented to use when playing with the dolphin pod. They hoped the dolphins would adopt the whistles, which are easy to distinguish from their own natural whistles and they were not disappointed. When the computer picked up the sargassum whistle, Herzing heard her own recorded voice saying the word into her ear.
...
Herzing is quick to acknowledge potential problems with the sargassum whistle. It is just one instance and so far hasn't been repeated. Its audio profile looks different from the whistle they taught the dolphins it has the same shape but came in at a higher frequency. Brenda McCowan of the University of California, Davis, says her experience with dolphin vocalisations matches that observation.
Since the translatable vocalization has only been used once, it could be nothing more than a fluke, but if we can teach dolphins new vocalizations with a specific meaning and they actually use them, then we could finally understand each other enough to start gathering the data needed for real communication with a non-human species, which would be an incredible achievement (and might finally force people to accept the fact that humans really arent all that different from other animals).
Bottlenose dolphins have been observed chattering while cooperating to solve a tricky puzzle – a feat that suggests they have a type of vocalisation dedicated to cooperating on problem solving.
Holli Eskelinen of Dolphins Plus research institute in Florida and her colleagues at the University of Southern Mississippi presented a group of six captive dolphins with a locked canister filled with food. The canister could only be opened by simultaneously pulling on a rope at either end.
The team conducted 24 canister trials, during which all six dolphins were present. Only two of the dolphins ever managed to crack the puzzle and get to the food.
The successful pair was prolific, though: in 20 of the trials, the same two adult males worked together to open the food canister in a matter of 30 seconds. In the other four trials, one of the dolphins managed to solve the problem on its own, but this was much trickier and took longer to execute.
But the real surprise came from recordings of the vocalisations the dolphins made during the experiment. The team found that when the dolphins worked together to open the canister, they made more vocalisations than they did while opening the canister on their own or when there was either no canister present or no interaction with the canister in the pool.
Hmm. Now all we need are studies that prove mice chittering decodes to discussing the meaning of 42.
An algorithm has been applied to approximately 52 million dolphin clicks recorded underwater, sorting them into seven distinct types, one of which was identifiable as sounds made by Risso's dolphin (Grampus griseus):
A new computer program has an ear for dolphin chatter. The algorithm uncovered six previously unknown types of dolphin echolocation clicks in underwater recordings from the Gulf of Mexico, researchers report online December 7 in PLOS Computational Biology. Identifying which species produce the newly discovered click varieties [open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005823] [DX] could help scientists better keep tabs on wild dolphin populations and movements.
Dolphin tracking is traditionally done with boats or planes, but that's expensive, says study coauthor Kaitlin Frasier, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. A cheaper alternative is to sift through seafloor recordings — which pick up the echolocation clicks that dolphins make to navigate, find food and socialize. By comparing different click types to recordings at the surface — where researchers can see which animals are making the noise — scientists can learn what different species sound like, and use those clicks to map the animals' movements deep underwater.
Related: Dolphins Have a Language That Helps Them Solve Problems Together
Another Study Identifies Complex Social and Cultural Behaviors Seen in Dolphins
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @07:05PM (10 children)
So, why are the rest of the apes so damn stupid compared to humans?
Some have suggested that experimentation with psychedelic mushrooms is responsible for an extremely rapid and large expansion of the human brain, as detailed by the fossil record and by cave art, and by the oral stories that form the foundation of most religions around the world.
Give them dolphins some shrooms!.. in the name of science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @07:19PM (4 children)
Dolphins eat fugu fish, the puffer fish loaded with tetrodotoxin, to get high. Somehow, that works for them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:26PM (3 children)
They get comfortably numb, I assume...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @02:21AM (2 children)
Just sayin'
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday October 18 2017, @06:02AM (1 child)
I know exactly where my dick is, thanks :) It's in the sock drawer, happily subsisting on a diet of double A batteries and possibly dust bunnies.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 18 2017, @01:52PM
Beware the pitfalls of a detachable penis [youtube.com].
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday October 17 2017, @09:29PM (4 children)
> So, why are the rest of the apes so damn stupid compared to humans?
Gorillas and Chimps live in a harem structure.
Bonobos have sex all the time as part of social interactions.
Who's the damn stupid species with laws, religions, and money, again?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:07PM (2 children)
The only problem is authoritarianism.
Without authoritarianism:
laws are simply contractual obligations to which each individual has voluntarily agreed.
religions are simply personal philosophies by which individuals choose to live their lives as meaningfully as possible.
money is simply a logistical technology that enables complex cooperation, placing ever more control over society's resources into the hands of those who prove to be good stewards, and removing ever more control over society's resources from the hands of those who prove to be bad stewards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @02:25AM (1 child)
You guys seriously don't give a fuck about conversation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @06:27PM
they have a subconscious need to defend their masters. you wrote something against the status quo. you are some kind of subversive terrorist now.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 18 2017, @04:04AM
Mmm...
It's only that "money" part that disturbs the picture abit, you willing to mellow that requirement?
If positive, here's the perfect answer within the context you defined: the Capuchins [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @07:16PM (3 children)
It takes a village to create a gang member. That's what happens when you leave the childrearing to your village.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @09:59PM (2 children)
Your point is? The human world has been built, run, and dominated by gangs since it's beginning, that is the normal course of things. People SHOULD look out for themselves and their neighbors and defend each other from external aggression, and when it comes time to be the aggressor, better have a team behind you. Humans are not a species that lives individually.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @01:31AM (1 child)
That "it takes a village to raise a child" nonsense in the summary is how you get street kids. That is: pickpockets, shoplifters, muggers, burglers...
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 18 2017, @10:31AM
Nobody is saying the parents should abrogate all responsibility to the community, just that the parents and immediate family alone aren't enough to teach a child about how to function in society: How to behave with strangers, how to differentiate friends from foes, how (and when) to properly assert oneself / negotiate / compromise, how much trust it is appropriate to put in different people... These things require direct lessons and experience that can only be perfected by interacting with a range of children and adults of varying levels of familiarity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @07:30PM
and millions of also very loud propellers not to even mention harpoons...
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 17 2017, @09:15PM
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday October 17 2017, @10:09PM (2 children)
Dogs and cats (and their wild counterparts) do this too, and they have tiny brains. Many bird species as well, with even smaller brains. Is it brain size or just a symptom of how the underlying hardware works? I'd find it far more plausible that problem solving and number crunching are benefited by larger brains rather than socializing, which is seen in nearly every social animal (which is most of them except for the largest predators).
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:48PM
Brain size is almost meaningless. The brain to mass ratio is the metric that correlate the best with problèms solving skills. Using that metric, birds fit were they belong ostrich(the stupidest bird not extinct) included...
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 18 2017, @03:03AM
Just ask the French: size isn't everything: https://www.wired.com/2007/07/brain-not-neces/ [wired.com]
If you've never seen the story, take a good look at the MRI scan... this guy is nearly fully functional in society.
🌻🌻 [google.com]