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Dolphins Have a Language That Helps Them Solve Problems Together

posted by martyb on Tuesday May 03 2016, @03:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the teamwork++ dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @05:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @05:58PM (#340955)

    Dolphin 1: Hey dude, let's open this canister. I'll pull this string and you pull the other one. Ready?
    Dolphin 2: You want us to work together? That's fucking socialism, you Nazi.
    Dolphin 1: Calm down, we get this free food.
    Dolphin 2: Your entitlement attitude is destroying America.
    Dolphin 1: Don't taze me bro.
    Dolphin 2: You can pry it out my cold dead fingers! DIE DIE DIE.

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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:55PM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:55PM (#341006)

    You *could* taze them, apparently (start reading at 'This is how you break down the wall' [rifters.com]).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @08:34PM (#341026)

    Dolphin Trump: Hey, lets get the humans to build us a food delivery chute, and then get them to build a wall to keep themselves away from it. We just have to entertain them with tricks and banter, which I'm excellent at.