Dolphins call each other by name and always react name - Money.pl

id=”inContext_disabled”> 2013-07-24 11:50

id=”inContext_disabled”> [Photo: sxc / cc / johnnyberg]

Living in the wild bottlenose dolphins spend with each other to identify the specific whistles. Also have responsibility when other individuals are calling them “by name” – according to a study of dolphins living off the east coast of Scotland, described in the last “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”.

Earlier, scientists have discovered that dolphins seem to have a few months of each other own distinctive whistles. Often they exercise, swimming along with others. There were also reports according to which the dolphins are following up whistling their relatives. It was not clear why they were doing, and in what circumstances. Because these are very distinctive whistling – the researchers suspected that marine mammals use them to name other individuals or to draw attention to themselves their attention.

whistles means “names” are almost half the noise made by the wild dolphins. The author of a new publication in PNAS, Stephanie King of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, had already determined that to follow pogwizdywa? other individuals occur in the groups of dolphins very close, such as mothers and young and captive pairs of males.

This time King together with Vincent M. Janik (also from the University of St. Andrews) have explored what happens when a dolphin hears his own whistle performed by another individual, even the most poorly known. Sounds about two hundred dolphins recorded off the coast of Scotland. Then recreated the sounds, one after the other, the flock under test. The sounds recreated in various ways, letting their own dolphin whistles or manipulating the record so that it seemed that the whistling another individual. They placed a whistling control gained in the population of dolphins and foreign populations.

test specimens each time quickly responded only to their own “name.” Very soon it odgwizdywa?y, sometimes several times. On the other whistles did not respond. According to the researchers confirmed that the dolphin whistles are the equivalent of human names, and their imitation may serve making contact.

Earlier researchers have shown that the noise from the surroundings perfectly imitate birds and bats. However, only the dolphins and parrots (even an African Grey Parrot) sounds themselves seem to be used only in relation to specific individuals or objects. It is not entirely clear why the dolphins use such “name” or “name”. According to King may be related to both the high intelligence of these mammals, as well as their rich social structure and their living environment in which better heard than seen, and where the sound can be very helpful in identification. (PAP)

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