Except for the whole murdering for fun thing, dolphins are awesome. They may even call to each other using different whistles for different individuals - that is, names. (Well, it's not a whistle, it's a vibrating membrane. Ew!)
Each individual has an identifying whistle, which his friends copy, though they repeat it a bit differently, which suggests they're not just mimicking. In fact, pairs only use each other's whistle when they've become separated. Neat!
Showing posts with label dolphins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dolphins. Show all posts
Sep 10, 2011
Jun 3, 2011
Bottlenose murderers
Don't let the bottlenose dolphin fool you. Behind Tersiops' innocent snout there's a cold killer.
“They just seem so quiet and nice,” says a jellyfish, one of the dolphins' neighbors. But reports continue to accumulate of cetaceans killing their fellow seafarers.
Why? What motivates them? It doesn't appear to be competition for food. Though it may just be for fun, a recent finding points to a new explanation. Mark Cotter and colleagues at Okeanis observed bottlenose dolphins chasing, ramming, and drowning lone harbor porpoises in the Pacific.
Since 21 of 23 dolphins were male, they must obviously have been murdering with that age old motive: sexual frustration.
“They just seem so quiet and nice,” says a jellyfish, one of the dolphins' neighbors. But reports continue to accumulate of cetaceans killing their fellow seafarers.
Why? What motivates them? It doesn't appear to be competition for food. Though it may just be for fun, a recent finding points to a new explanation. Mark Cotter and colleagues at Okeanis observed bottlenose dolphins chasing, ramming, and drowning lone harbor porpoises in the Pacific.
Since 21 of 23 dolphins were male, they must obviously have been murdering with that age old motive: sexual frustration.
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