Dolphins Have Names and They Know It

Apparently, dolphins have names too and they know that. Though they may not come along the lines of Sam, John, Jessica, Carla or many other cool names that we, humans, use, they amazingly do. The recent study by Marine Biologists, Dr. Stephanie King and Dr. Vincent Janik in Scotland shines a new light on dolphins' learning abilities and communication that are not much different from humans.

From the study that is later published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, dolphins make 'signature whistles.' Just like how we have our personal names, each dolphin has his or her signature whistle, copied from family and friends, to which they respond to. Very cool, huh.

So how did they come to this finding? Researchers followed groups of wild dolphins where they took note of their signature whistles. They recorded various dolphin whistles and played them back in a computerized version. They found out that each dolphin only reacts to their own signature whistle and ignores the rest.

According to Dr. King, various animal signals exist to make distinction between predators and food. But unlike those inherent signals, they found that signature whistles from dolphins are rather learned, something quite unique in the animal kingdom.

This scientific finding makes dolphins the first case of naming mammals. Well, dolphins and possibly parrots. Because other research studies have also identified parrots’ amazing ability to learn sounds and use them to label things. But we’ll have a special discussion about parrots on a separate article where we can focus on their own uniqueness.

Whether it's listening to our name or a whistle, it's a matter of learning how to take in and respond to certain sounds. In other words, humans' and dolphins' form of communication overlap as we both have the capacity to acknowledge certain sounds, make meaning of them and respond.

With this new finding, don't you think dolphins just got so much cuter, adorable and valuable? This goes to show folks that these animals deserve more respect and recognition from us. There is just so much to learn about them just like the rest of our wildlife and the beautiful world we live in. Dolphins certainly deserve our love and affection and we can show them by protecting their habitat and continuously looking for ways to better understand them and empower their welfare. 

Source

"A better understanding leads to better actions that make a better world"