Dolphins have a highly developed brain. Why do dolphins have such a large brain? Craving for knowledge
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When the German physiologist M. Tiedemann saw the brain of a dolphin for the first time back in 1827, he was amazed. The brain of a dolphin turned out to be larger than that of a monkey and almost the same as that of a human.
Professor A. Portman from Switzerland conducted research on the mental abilities of animals and found out that according to the results of the test, a person came out on top - 215 points, a dolphin was on the second - 190 points, and an elephant was the third winner. The monkey took only fourth place.
When scientists compared the human and dolphin brains, it turned out that the average human brain weighs about 1.4 kg (Turgenev's largest is 2.12 kg). The brain of a dolphin pulls 1.7 kg. Moreover, the cortex has twice as many convolutions. Isn't this what explains the amazing quick wits and incredible quickness of thinking of the dolphin? He is able to assimilate the amount of knowledge 1.5 times more than you and I. In addition, dolphins have their own spoken language, with which they can communicate with each other and transmit the necessary information.
Why does a dolphin have such a large and complex brain? Of course, not just to eat, swim smartly, produce offspring.
This question interested scientists and they tried to establish who was the ancestor of the dolphin. Remaining elements in the skeleton of animals confirm that they originated from some kind of terrestrial quadrupedal mammals. Blood tests suggested that cetaceans, which include dolphins, and ungulates are relatives. But what made the dolphin ancestor change his terrestrial existence to a water one 65 million years ago, and who, in fact, was he?
It can be assumed that the whole thing is some kind of cosmic cataclysms that touched the Earth and forced animals to seek salvation in the water. After all, it was 65 million years ago that dinosaurs suddenly disappeared from the Earth. Finally, what was the land in those days: tiny islands in the vast expanse of the oceans. It could happen that someone did not have enough space on this small land.
Who knows, maybe the forerunner of man and dolphin was the same creature: having raised a stick from the ground, it went through a grandiose path of earthly evolution and became a man, and, returning to the sea, it became a dolphin.
Like it or not, it is difficult to say with accuracy. However, one thing is absolutely clear: if man is the crown of creation on Earth, then the dolphin is the crown of creation in the ocean, "the king of the expanses of the sea."
Dolphins give birth to babies in the water. At the time of childbirth, the female raises her tail high above the water, the dolphin is born in the air and has time to breathe before it falls into the water. For the first few hours, the baby dolphin swims like a float in an upright position, slightly moving its front flippers: it has accumulated a sufficient supply of fat in the womb, and its density is less than that of water. There is always a mother and one or two more females nearby.
The dolphin feeds on mother's milk for the first time. When sucking, the baby’s lips are replaced by a tongue rolled into a tube: he covers the mother’s nipple with it, and she splashes milk into his mouth. All this happens underwater: the respiratory canal is separated from the esophagus, and the dolphin can swallow food underwater without fear of choking. After 3 years, he becomes an adult. Dolphins live up to 30 years. Cubs are born once every 2 years.
Dolphins move easily and quickly in the water. With a sudden jump, he throws the body out of the water in order to take a breath. Their shiny bodies amaze with a perfectly streamlined shape, reminiscent of a drop or a torpedo. The muzzle is extended into a narrow beak, the nostrils are merged into one "blowhole", from which the animal can release a fountain of spray 1-1.5 m high.
An adult dolphin is capable of reaching speeds of over 50 km/h. This speed is facilitated not only by the streamlined shape of the body, but also by the special properties of the skin. The outer layer - about 1.5 mm - is extremely elastic. The inner layer with a thickness of about 4 mm consists of a dense fabric. Interestingly, the inner part of the outer layer is permeated with many passages and tubes filled with a soft fatty substance. By the way, artificial skin for submarines is similar in quality to dolphin skin.
Dolphins have complex audio signaling. They are able to create and perceive ultrasounds. Precise sonar makes it possible for them to detect objects the size of an acorn in water at a distance of up to 15 m. Thanks to echolocation, dolphins find food and avoid collisions with obstacles even in completely muddy water.
Examples
Once a passenger ship was wrecked. Several people survived. None of them believed that they could survive. And when they saw a flock of sharks approaching them, they said goodbye to each other. But suddenly a miracle happened. A flock of dolphins rushed from the open sea, fearlessly dispersing a flock of sharks. And she helped people stay afloat until help arrived.
An even more striking incident occurred with the fishermen in the same place in the Black Sea. A flock of dolphins surrounded the launch and swam nearby, making sounds and clearly trying to attract the attention of people. The dolphins circled around the ship until people realized that the animals were worried about something. Following them, they found a captured dolphin. Having fought off the flock, he got tangled in a fishing net. The cub was rescued and released.
The fate of the famous dolphin Tuffy, an honorary member of the American underwater expedition, is interesting. The dolphin worked as a postman and conductor, bringing appliances and tools. If one of the aquanauts swam too far into the sea and lost his bearings, Taffy always came to the rescue and led the lost one to the house on a nylon leash. After such a brilliant debut, Tuffy was accepted into service at one of the US missile ranges. He searched the sea for the electronic devices of spent rocket stages. All equipment was crammed with miniature ultrasonic transmitters. The dolphin was in a hurry to their "call signs".
The dolphin Polorus Jack, so nicknamed by English sailors, has been guiding ships through the dangerous strait in New Zealand for 25 years as a real pilot.
Not so long ago, an absolutely amazing incident occurred in the marine aquarium in Miami. Several dolphins caught in the ocean were brought here for training. Not far from the recruits were already trained dolphins. They did not see each other. And yet, a conversation immediately began between them. All night long strange sounds and noises were heard from the pool. The unthinkable happened in the morning. The new dolphins immediately began to perform all the tricks that people intended to teach them. It seems that their brothers, who have long lived in the pool, told them about this.
V. Avdeenko.
The distant ancestors of dolphins lived on land. Only about 70 million years ago they went to live in the ocean. Why? Because in difficult periods of history, only aquatic organisms can survive on Earth. The longer people study dolphins, the less improbable the hypothesis seems that these mammals created their own civilization, indistinguishable in complexity from ours.
The level of mental development of dolphins is very high. To what extent, the person has not yet been able to establish. Perhaps this species is in no way inferior to Homo sapiens in terms of intelligence. The dolphin brain surpassed the human brain both in weight and in the number of convolutions and nerve cells in the cortex.
Dolphins have their own communication system, which is in no way inferior to human language. The language of dolphins includes both gestures (turns of the head, tail, fins, various postures, jumps) and various sounds, which are sound and ultrasonic impulses.
Only whistles in the language of dolphins, the researchers counted 32 varieties. Each of them carries certain information - a greeting signal, the call of relatives, an expression of alarm, and so on. Interestingly, some native tribes of the Canary Islands and Mexico at a great distance also communicate with the help of a whistle.
By scanning the language of dolphins using the Zipf method, scientists have received indisputable evidence that it serves to transmit information, like human speech. The Zipf method allows you to determine whether sounds carry informational meaning. Its essence lies in determining the frequency of repetition of identical letters in speech. In the form of a mathematical graph, the speech of intelligent beings has the form of an inclined line, and random noises are located strictly horizontally. So, the speech of dolphins had the same slope coefficient on the graph as the language of people.
It was possible to isolate about 200 communication signs in the vocabulary of communication of these mammals. But their deciphering is slow and difficult. The sound communication of dolphins occurs in the range up to 300 kHz, while humans communicate with each other in the frequency band up to 20 kHz. Like humans, dolphins' speech has six levels of organization, from sound to context. But if people begin to understand each other only from the third level (word), then dolphins communicate even with the help of monosyllabic sounds.
There are many similarities between humans and dolphins. And this applies not only to the complexity of the organization of speech. Dolphins live as long as people, create families, love to communicate, grow up at the same age. Depending on the region of habitat, the language of dolphins differs slightly, which allows us to draw a parallel with the national languages of people.
American scientists have found that each dolphin at birth receives a name from its relatives (a certain form of whistle lasting 0.9 seconds), which it responds to throughout its life. Dolphins refer to each other by name when communicating.
If the dolphin is alone in the pool, then it is silent. But as soon as another individual appears nearby, they begin to reproduce the richest set of sounds.
The study shows that approximately eight of the 67 species of Odontoceti (including dolphins) went through an EQ increase approximately 15 million years ago, reaching factors of 4 and 5, although the reasons for this second evolutionary leap remain completely unclear (there is only one such case of "explosive" development "intelligence" among large animals, known to scientists today: over five million years of human history, EQ has increased from about 2.5 to 7). At the same time, the "mental abilities" of the rest of the "dolphin tribe" for some reason, on the contrary, decreased.
In Douglas Adams' brilliant classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there were several animals smarter than humans. One - not without irony - was an ordinary laboratory mouse. Another creature was aware of the intergalactic bulldozers that eventually vaporized the planet and tried to warn us of the coming fate. The dolphins' last message was misinterpreted as a remarkably sophisticated attempt at a double somersault through the hoop while whistling a merry ditty, but in reality the message was: "Good luck and thanks for the fish!"
Dolphins are said to have an unusual level of intelligence that sets them apart and elevates them above the rest of the animal kingdom. It is widely believed that dolphins are highly intelligent (perhaps smarter than humans), have complex behaviors, and have proto-language abilities. However, recently, against the background of studies of these animals, a somewhat different, sometimes opposite, opinion has developed.
The exalted status of dolphins among animals came about with John Lilly, a 1960s dolphin researcher and psychotropic drug addict. He first popularized the idea that dolphins are smart, and later even suggested that they are smarter than humans.
Ultimately, after the 1970s, Lilly was largely discredited and did not contribute much to the science of dolphin cognition. But despite the efforts of mainstream scientists to distance themselves from his bizarre ideas (that dolphins were spiritually enlightened) and even the craziest ones (that dolphins communicate with holographic images), his name is inevitably associated with dolphin research.
"He is, and I think most dolphin scientists would agree with me, the father of the study of dolphin intelligence," writes Justin Gregg in Are Dolphins Really Smart?.
Since Lilly's research, dolphins have shown that they can understand signals transmitted from a television screen, distinguish parts of their bodies, recognize their own image in a mirror, and have a complex repertoire of whistles and even names.
In any case, all these ideas have recently been questioned. Gregg's book is the latest tug-of-war between neuroanatomy, behavior and communication - between the ideas that dolphins are special and that they are on par with many other creatures.
Why big brains
So far, the debunking of dolphin abilities has dealt with two main topics: anatomy and behavior.
Munger, a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, has previously argued that the dolphin's large brain most likely evolved to help the animal keep warm rather than perform cognitive functions. This article from 2006 was widely criticized by the dolphin research community.
In his new work (also written by Munger), he takes a critical approach to the study of brain anatomy, archaeological records, and much-cited behavioral research, concluding that cetaceans are no smarter than other invertebrates and that their large brains appeared for a different purpose. This time he cites many behavioral observations as an example, such as image recognition in a mirror, which was conducted in September 2011 and appeared as a result in Discover. Munger found them incomplete, incorrect, or outdated.
Lori Marino, a pro-brain intelligence neuroanatomist at Emory University, is working on a rebuttal.
Smarter!
Another argument - that the behavior of dolphins is not as impressive as they say - leads Gregg. As a professional dolphin researcher, he notes that he respects the "achievements" of dolphins in the field of cognition, but feels that the public and other researchers have slightly overestimated their actual level of cognitive abilities. In addition, many other animals show similar impressive features.
In his book, Gregg cites experts who question the value of the self-perception mirror test, which is thought to indicate some degree of self-awareness. Gregg notes that octopuses and pigeons can act like dolphins if given a mirror.
In addition, Gregg argues that dolphin communications are overrated. While their whistles and clicks are certainly complex forms of audio signals, they nonetheless lack the features of human language (such as the conclusion of finite concepts and meanings or freedom from emotions).
In addition, he criticizes attempts to apply information theory - a branch of mathematics - to the information contained in dolphin whistles. Can information theory be applied to animal communication at all? Gregg has his doubts, and he's not alone.
Gregg points out that dolphins certainly have many impressive cognitive abilities, but so do many other animals. And not necessarily the smartest: Many chickens are just as smart at some tasks as dolphins, Gregg says. Spiders also demonstrate amazing abilities for cognition, and yet they do have eight eyes.
Craving for knowledge
It is important to note that researchers like Munger are in the minority among scientists who study dolphin cognition. Moreover, even Gregg tries to distance himself from the idea of mediocrity of dolphins - he rather says that other animals are smarter than we thought.
Even Gordon Gallup, the behavioral neuroscientist who pioneered the use of mirrors to assess self-awareness in primates, expresses doubts that dolphins are capable of this.
“In my opinion, the videos taken during this experiment are not convincing,” he said in 2011. "They are suggestive, but not convincing."
The arguments against dolphin exclusivity boil down to three main ideas. First, according to Munger, dolphins are simply not smarter than other animals. Secondly, it is difficult to compare one species with another. Third, there is too little research on this topic to draw firm conclusions.
Despite their reputation for exceptional intelligence, dolphins may not be as smart as they thought they were.
Scott Norris, writing in Bioscience, points out that "the cunning Scott Lilly" was instrumental in creating the image of "smart dolphins" in the 1960s. He was fascinated by dolphins and spent years teaching them how to talk. Lilly were unethical, sometimes even immoral, but he was not the only one who tried to teach the language of animals, which were credited with the rudiments of intelligence. Complex communications are born out of social systems, and social interactions require other traits that are often associated with intelligence. Culture is needed to form and remember social bonds, learn new behaviors, and work together.
From this point of view, dolphins do display behaviors and practices associated with culture and intelligence. Norris notes that studies of wild dolphins and whales show that their vocalizations are varied and specific enough to be considered a language. Dolphins easily learn new behavior and are even capable of imitation. They track complex social hierarchies within and between groups. They have even been known to invent new behaviors in response to new situations, which Norris considers some scientists to be "the most distinctive feature of intelligence." What's more, dolphins can even teach each other these new behaviors. Norris describes how some populations of dolphins used sponges to protect themselves from scratches and taught others the technique. This transmission of practices is seen by many as the birth of a culture.
Yes, dolphins appear to be smarter than many species, but their behavior is by no means unique to dolphins. Many animals, such as wild boars, dogs, primates or sea lions, have complex vocalizations, social relationships, the ability to learn, imitate and adapt to new situations that are just as complex. Many skills, in particular learning, are more developed in other species than in dolphins. Cultural exchange, which has yet to be proven in dolphins, is less common, but other animals are not yet well understood. Other examples can be identified.
The problem is not only and not so much whether dolphins are smart, because at some level they are really smart, but whether they are smarter than other animals, and this remains to be seen. Dolphins like to attribute human traits. In many dolphins you can see "faces" and "smiles", which cannot be said, for example, about a wild boar. Looking at this grinning face, we begin to see people in dolphins. Are dolphins smart? It all depends on how smart you want them to be.
Dolphins are smarter than humans- a phrase that ridicules the mental abilities of a person by comparing his intelligence with the intelligence of dolphins. Such memes usually talk about stupid actions and senseless disputes that are inherent in a person. And the dolphin, which does not commit such acts, is opposed to all this.
Origin
It is believed that dolphins are the most intelligent mammals on the planet after humans. However, the meme is most likely based on the text from chapter 23 of the humorous book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979).
On planet Earth, it was generally accepted that the intelligence of a person is higher than the intelligence of a dolphin, on the simple basis that man has created so many useful things - the wheel, New York, wars, etc. - while the dolphins just chilled themselves in the water. But dolphins, on the contrary, have always considered themselves much smarter than humans - for the same reason. Douglas Adams
Meme "Dolphins are smarter than people" can exist both in the form of plain text and in the form of a picture. The most well-established macro contains an image of a hypothetical scientist who concludes: “This is how dolphins once again proved that they are one of the smartest creatures on Earth.”
Meaning
The dolphin meme makes fun of hobbies, stupid actions, and the generally familiar image of people. This is expressed in the fact that the dolphin answers the next senseless dispute “I don’t care”, thereby confirming its intelligence.
Some memes, on the same principle, make fun of things and phenomena familiar to people. Have you ever seen a dolphin paying tuition for 5 years to work outside of their profession? No. Because a dolphin is smarter than a human.
Gallery
Scientists have long noticed that advanced intelligence and an evolutionarily developed brain are present in humans and other animals, often demonstrating social behavior. This led anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar to propose the social brain hypothesis. According to the theory, man developed a large brain in order to be able to live in large social groups. Although in the last 20,000 years, due to the “domestication” of man, his brain has decreased in size, but before that, evolution had to quickly increase the brain of hominids in a relatively short time so that people could unite in large tribes.
In social communication, it is very important to recognize the so-called "outside knowledge", that is, to understand the hierarchy, social relationships and relationships such as "she knows what he knows" and the like. For example, the alpha male in a chimpanzee chooses any females for himself, but at the same time he is tolerant of attempts to mate with them from those who helped him to reign on the throne. Without a sufficiently advanced brain, such intricacies of social hierarchy cannot be assimilated.
Now a group of scientists from the US and the UK has published a new scientific paper "The Social and Cultural Roots of the Whale and Dolphin Brain", which confirms the social brain hypothesis.
The cetaceans (dolphins and whales) have the most advanced nervous systems of any taxonomic group and rank highly on any measure of neuroanatomical complexity. However, many cetaceans are also organized into hierarchical social structures and display a surprising breadth of cultural and social behavior, features that are - rare in animals - very similar to the social behavior of humans and primates. But so far, little evidence has been collected of correlations between large brains, social structures, and cultural behavior in cetaceans.
Whales and dolphins have a vast array of complex social behaviors, including:
- relationships in complex alliances;
- social transfer of hunting techniques (training);
- joint hunting;
- complex singing, including singing in regional group dialects;
- speech mimicry (imitation of other people's voices);
- the use of "voice signatures-identifiers" unique to a particular individual;
- interspecies cooperation with humans and other animals;
- alloparental care for someone else's cub (for example, by a female helper or "nanny");
- social games.
The researchers collected a large amount of data on each species of cetacean - body weight, brain size, the degree of manifestation of social communication on the above signs - and calculated the correlation between these indicators. The first diagram below shows relationships between species and brain size (red for larger, green for smaller). On the second diagram - indicators of social behavior (social repertoire). Finally, below is a graph of the relationship between these two parameters.
Scientists have found that the evolutionary development of the brain is associated with the social structure of the species and with the size of the group. Moreover, the relationship with group size is quadratic, that is, the most developed brain and advanced social behavior are shown by medium-sized groups, and not small or large groups.
The authors of the scientific work point to clear parallels between marine mammals and primates/humans. Dolphins and whales also have a combination of both large brains, hypersocial behavior and a variety of behavioral patterns. It was these qualities that allowed man to multiply in incredible numbers and populate the entire Earth. Scientists believe that in dolphins and humans, intellectual abilities manifested themselves in the course of evolution as a kind of evolutionary reaction to the need to live in a society of their own kind.
Dolphins are the most intelligent creatures created by nature. For many centuries, their behavior has attracted and excited the imagination of people. Meeting with them can cause a storm of enthusiastic emotions. Myths and legends were written about their life. And the extraordinary abilities of these animals remain a mystery at the present time.
Into the depths of centuries
Dolphins appeared on Earth more than 70 million years ago. Their origin, which explains the ability, is shrouded in legends and secrets no less than the appearance of man. People have been studying how the dolphin brain works, their intelligence and habits for many centuries. However, these animals were able to study us much better. For a short period they lived on land, on which they left the reservoir, and then returned back to the water. To date, scientists have not been able to explain this phenomenon. However, there is an assumption that when people find with dolphins they will be able to tell us a lot about their lives. However, this is unlikely.
Weird facts about the dolphin brain
Scientists in many countries of the world are haunted by the brain of a dolphin. They try to understand how it works. These amazing animals, with social skills, trainable and understanding human behavior, are certainly different from other representatives of the fauna. Their brains have undergone unprecedented development over the past few tens of millions of years. One of the differences between dolphin and human brains is that animals have learned to turn off one half of the brain so that it can rest. These are the only representatives of the animal world, of course, except for people who are able to communicate in their own language, through the most complex combination of various sounds and clicks. Scientists have found that dolphins have the foundations of logical thinking, that is, the highest form of mind development. And this amazing fact has been found in mammals. These animals are able to solve the most complex riddles, find answers to difficult questions and adjust their behavior to the circumstances set by a person.
The brain of a dolphin is larger than the human brain, so the brain of an adult animal weighs 1 kg 700 g, and the human brain weighs 300 g less. The convolutions in a person are two times less than in a dolphin. Researchers have collected materials on the presence of these representatives not only of self-consciousness, but also of social consciousness. The number of nerve cells also exceeds their number in humans. Animals are capable of echolocation. An acoustic lens, which is located on the head, focuses sound waves (ultrasound), with the help of which the dolphin, as it were, feels the existing underwater objects and determines their shape. The next amazing ability is the ability to feel the magnetic poles. In the brain of dolphins, there are special magnetic crystals that help them navigate the water surface of the ocean.
The brain of a dolphin and a human: a comparison
Dolphin is, of course, the most intelligent and intelligent animal on the planet. Scientists have found that when air passes through the nasal passages, sound signals are formed in them. These amazing animals for communication use:
- about sixty basic sound signals;
- up to five levels of their various combinations;
- the so-called vocabulary of about 14 thousand signals.
The average human vocabulary is the same amount. In everyday life, he manages 800-1000 different words. In the case of translating a dolphin's signal into a human one, it will most likely resemble a hieroglyph denoting a word and an action. The ability of animals to communicate is considered a sensation. The difference between the brain of a human and a dolphin lies in the number of convolutions, the latter has twice as many.
Dolphin DNA study
Australian scientists after comparing the DNA of humans and dolphins concluded that these mammals are our closest relatives. As a result, the legend was developed that they are descendants of people who lived in Atlantis. And after these highly civilized inhabitants went into the ocean, no one knows exactly what happened to them. According to legend, they turned into inhabitants of the deep sea and retained love for a person in memory of a past life. Adherents of this beautiful legend argue that since there is a similarity between the intellect, DNA structures and the human brain with a dolphin, then people have a common beginning with them.
Dolphin abilities
Ichthyologists, who study the phenomenal abilities of dolphins, claim that they take the second place in terms of the level of intelligence development after humans. But the great apes are only the fourth.
If we compare the brain of a human and a dolphin, then the weight of the brain in an adult animal is from 1.5 to 1.7 kg, which is certainly more than that of humans. And, for example, the ratio of body to brain size in chimpanzees is significantly lower than in dolphins. A complex chain of relationships and collective organization indicates the existence of a special civilization of these living beings.
Test results conducted by scientists
When comparing the brain weight of a human and a dolphin and their body mass, the ratio will be the same. During tests on the level of mental development, these creatures showed amazing results. It turned out that by only nineteen points, dolphins scored less points than humans. Scientists concluded that animals are able to understand human thinking and have good analytical skills.
One well-known neurophysiologist in the scientific community, who worked with dolphins for quite a long time, made the following conclusion - that these representatives of the animal world would be the first to establish contact, and consciously, with human civilization. And the fact that dolphins have an individual highly developed language, excellent memory and mental abilities that allow them to pass on accumulated knowledge and experience from generation to generation will help dolphins in communication. Another assumption of scientists is that if these animals had developed limbs differently, they would be able to write, due to the similarity of their minds with the human.
Some Features
During a disaster that caught in the sea or ocean, dolphins save a person. Eyewitnesses tell how the animals drove away predatory sharks for several hours, not giving any chance to approach the person, and then helped them swim to the shore. It is this attitude that is typical for adults to their offspring. Perhaps they perceive a person in trouble as their cub. The superiority of these representatives of the animal world over other inhabitants lies in their monogamy. Unlike other animals that look for a mate only for mating and easily change partners, dolphins choose them for life. They live in large families, together with the elderly and children, taking care of them throughout their life span. Thus, the absence of polygamy, which is present in almost all inhabitants of the fauna, indicates their higher stage of development.
The subtle hearing of dolphins
The uniqueness lies in the fact that the ability to reproduce a special sound with the help of a sound wave helps to navigate in the expanses of water over long distances. Dolphins emit a so-called click, which, having stumbled upon an obstacle, returns to them in the form of a special impulse that propagates through the water at great speed.
The closer the subject is, the faster the echo will return. Developed intelligence allows them to estimate the distance to an obstacle with maximum accuracy. In addition, the dolphin transmits the information received over great distances to its fellows using special signals. Each animal has its own name, and by the characteristic intonations of the voice, they are able to distinguish all members of the pack.
Language development and onomatopoeia
With the help of a special language, animals can explain to their fellows what needs to be done to get food. For example, during training sessions in a dolphinarium, they share information about which pedal to press in order for a fish to fall out. The human and dolphin brains are capable of producing sounds. The ability to imitate them in the latter is manifested in the ability of animals to accurately copy and transmit various sounds: the sound of wheels, the singing of birds. The uniqueness lies in the fact that in the recording it is impossible to distinguish where the real sound is and where the imitation is. In addition, dolphins are able to copy human speech, though not with such accuracy.
Dolphins - teachers and researchers
They teach their relatives with interest the knowledge and skills they possess. Dolphins take in information out of curiosity about learning new things, not under duress. There are cases when an animal that lived in a dolphinarium for a long time helped trainers teach their fellows various tricks. Unlike other seabed dwellers, they strike a balance between curiosity and danger. During surveys of new territories, they put on the nose capable of protecting them from all sorts of troubles that will meet on the way.
Feelings and mind of an animal
It has been proven that the brain of a dolphin, like a human, is capable of expressing feelings. These animals can feel resentment, jealousy, love, and they will express these feelings quite easily. For example, if aggression or pain was applied to an animal during training, the dolphin will show indignation and will never work with such a person.
This just confirms that they have a long-term memory. Animals have a mind close to human. For example, in order to extract a fish from a rocky gap, they clamp a stick between their teeth and try to push the prey out with its help. The ability to use improvised means is reminiscent of the development of man when he first began to use tools.
- These animals have a well-developed intelligence.
- When comparing the brain of a dolphin and a human, it was found that the brain of the first, unlike the human, has more convolutions and is larger in size.
- Animals use both hemispheres in turn.
- The organs of vision are underdeveloped.
- Their unique hearing allows them to navigate superbly.
- The maximum speed that animals can develop is 50 km / h. However, it is available only to ordinary dolphins.
- In representatives of this genus, the regeneration of the dermis is much faster than in humans. They are not afraid of infections.
- The lungs take part in breathing. The organ by which dolphins grab air is called the blowhole.
- The body of the animal is able to produce a special substance, which is similar in mechanism of action to morphine. Therefore, they practically do not feel pain.
- With the help of taste buds, they are able to distinguish tastes, for example, bitter, sweet and others.
- Dolphins communicate with the help of sound signals, of which there are approximately 14,000 varieties.
- Scientists have experimentally proven that each newborn dolphin gets its own name and that they can recognize themselves in a mirror image.
- Animals are superbly trainable.
- To search for food, the most common bottlenose dolphins use a sea sponge, putting it on the sharpest part of the snout and thus examining the bottom in search of prey. The sponge serves as protection against sharp rocks or reefs.
- India has banned the keeping of dolphins in captivity.
- The inhabitants of Japan and Denmark hunt them and use the meat for food.
- In most countries, including Russia, these animals are kept in dolphinariums.
It is very difficult to list all the amazing abilities of dolphins, since every year people discover more and more new opportunities for these amazing inhabitants of nature.