Cetacean Culture

[rynner2]

Ocean Giants - 2. Deep Thinkers

Documentary focusing on the intelligence of whales and dolphins, as Professor Denise Herzing attempts to find out how close their minds are to those of humans.

Humans have long wondered if the universe may harbour other intelligent life forms. But perhaps we need look no further than our oceans?

Whales and dolphins, like humans, have large brains, are quick to learn new behaviours and use a wide range of sounds to communicate with others in their society. But how close are their minds to ours? In the Bahamas, Professor Denise Herzing believes she is very close to an answer, theorising that she will be able to hold a conversation with wild dolphins in their own language within five years.

In Western Australia, dolphins rely on their versatile and inventive brains to survive in a marine desert. In Alaska, humpback whales gather into alliances in which individuals pool their specialised talents to increase their hunting success. We discover how young spotted dolphins learn their individual names and the social etiquette of their pod, and how being curious about new objects leads Caribbean bottlenose dolphins to self-awareness and even to self-obsession. Finally, the film shows a remarkable group of Mexican grey whales, who seem able to empathize with humans and may even have a concept of forgiveness.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Thinkers/

This is fascinating.

But it also poses a question - do dolphins think of us as aliens? After all, many wild dolphins may never have encountered humans or our technology. Do they have the equivalent of Urban Legends about strange creatures that come from 'above', and perform strange, inexplicable deeds?
(This thought is based partly on the 'ring bubble' experiment shown in the prog.)

Despite the long history of human-dolphin interaction, our more recent technology may seem to them to be 'magic', rather than something connected to flesh and bood mammals like themselves.

 

[ramonmercado]

Dolphins 'decompress like humans'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15239381

Stranded dolphins are common along the coast of Cape Cod in winter months

Related Stories

Whale strandings 'increase 25%'
Mystery of dolphin mass stranding
Beaked whales: Sounding off

Scientists have found tiny bubbles beneath the blubber of dolphins that have beached themselves.

The bubbles were discovered by taking ultrasound scans of the animals within minutes of stranding off Cape Cod, US.

The team's findings help confirm what many researchers have long suspected: dolphins avoid the bends by taking long, shallow decompression dives after feeding at depth.

The study is reported in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Many biologists believe that marine mammals do not struggle, as human divers do, with decompression sickness - "the bends" - when ascending from great depths.

In humans, breathing air at the comparatively high pressures delivered by scuba equipment causes more nitrogen to be absorbed into the blood and the body's tissues, and this nitrogen comes back out as divers ascend.

If divers ascend too quickly, the dissolved nitrogen forms bubbles in the body, causing decompression sickness.

But marine mammals such as whales, dolphins, and seals are highly adept at dealing with the pressures of the deep.

They slow their hearts, collapse the tiny air-filled chambers in their lungs, and channel blood to essential organs - like the brain - to conserve oxygen, and limit the build-up of nitrogen bubbles in the blood that happens at depth.

Continue reading the main story
'The bends'

As a diver descends, nitrogen, which makes up about 80% of the air, is absorbed into the body's tissues
If a diver ascends slowly, the nitrogen slowly seeps out of the body's tissues and is exhaled in a process called off-gassing
If a diver ascends too quickly without ample time to off-gas, nitrogen forms tiny bubbles in the blood, which if left untreated can be fatal
Joint pain is a common symptoms of having nitrogen bubbles in the blood, and causes sufferers to bend and contort - giving the decompression sickness its colloquial name "the bends".
However, veterinary scientist Michael Moore from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in the US, thinks that it is "naive" to think that diving mammals do not also struggle with these laws of chemistry.

Even marine mammals ascending from the deep must rid themselves of the gas that has built up in their tissues, or risk developing the bends.

If dolphins, he explained, come up too quickly then there is evidence that they "grab another gulp of air and go back down again," in much the same way a human diver would "re-tank and re-ascend" to try to prevent the bends.

"But there's one place you can't do that [if you are a dolphin] and that's sitting on the beach," Dr Moore told BBC News.

And so when he and his team scanned eight Atlantic white-sided dolphins and 14 short-beaked common stranded dolphins using ultrasound, they were not surprised to find tiny bubbles below the blubber of the animals.

Because three of the dolphins were scanned within minutes of their stranding, the team ruled out the possibility that the air pockets were a result of beaching, and instead think that they formed while the animals were still in the water.

Bends over
Sascha Hooker, a marine mammal ecologist with the Sea Mammal Research Unit in St Andrews, UK, commented: "This study is much less about why animals strand, and much more about using stranded animals to give us a bit more insight [into] what is going on inside live marine mammals.

"[What's] particularly interesting from this is that the animals that were released... survived.

"So it looks like these animals are able to deal with some bubbles."

She explained that studying the behaviour and physiology of diving animals is incredibly difficult because researchers cannot follow them down to the deep.

Stranded animals, therefore, offer researchers rare access to these expert divers to measure what changes they undergo to avoid the bends.

 

[ramonmercado]

Rare whale caught on film for first time
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-rar ... aught.html
February 23rd, 2012 in Biology / Plants & Animals


A Shepherd's beaked whale off the coast of Australia's Victoria state. The Australian Antarctic Division team was tracking blue whales when they spotted the reclusive mammals, which are so rarely seen no population estimates of the species exist.

Australian researchers Thursday revealed they had filmed a pod of extremely rare Shepherd's beaked whales for the first time ever.

The Australian Antarctic Division team was tracking blue whales off the coast of Victoria state last month when they spotted the reclusive mammals, which are so rarely seen that no population estimates of the species exist.

Voyage leader Michael Double said the black and cream-coloured mammals with prominent dolphin-like beaks had been spotted in the wild only a handful of times through history.

According to the Australian environment department, there have only been two previous confirmed sightings -- a lone individual in New Zealand and a group of three in Western Australia

They have never been filmed live before.

"These animals are practically entirely known from stranded dead whales, and there haven't been many of them," Double told AFP, calling the footage "unique".

"They are an offshore animal, occupying deep water, and when they surface it is only for a very short period of time."

Double said what was remarkable about the sighting was that the whale was previously thought to be a solitary creature, yet was in a pod of 10 to 12.
"To find them in a pod is very exciting and will change the guide books. Our two whale experts will now carefully study the footage to work out the whale sizes and so on and prepare a scientific paper."

The Shepherd's beaked whale, also known as the Tasman beaked whale, was discovered in 1937 but little is known about them.

 

[rynner2]

Rare whale caught on film for first time
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-rar ... aught.html
February 23rd, 2012 in Biology / Plants & Animals


A Shepherd's beaked whale off the coast of Australia's Victoria state. The Australian Antarctic Division team was tracking blue whales when they spotted the reclusive mammals, which are so rarely seen no population estimates of the species exist.

Australian researchers Thursday revealed they had filmed a pod of extremely rare Shepherd's beaked whales for the first time ever.

The Australian Antarctic Division team was tracking blue whales off the coast of Victoria state last month when they spotted the reclusive mammals, which are so rarely seen that no population estimates of the species exist.

Voyage leader Michael Double said the black and cream-coloured mammals with prominent dolphin-like beaks had been spotted in the wild only a handful of times through history.

...

I thought I was seeing double!

 

[ramonmercado]

What made 30 dolphins come ashore in Brazil?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... razil.html
20:44 09 March 2012 by Catherine de Lange

Video: Watch locals in Brazil save stranded dolphins

It was just another day on the beach for holidaymakers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when a pod of about 30 dolphins swam ashore on Monday. Beachgoers quickly came to the rescue, rushing into the sea and dragging the dolphins by their fins and tails into deeper water.

The whole episode was captured by Gerd Traue in a video (above), which has racked up over a million views online.

What can experts learn from the footage? The species involved, for one. These are common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), which typically live a long way off shore, says Mark Simmonds of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, a global charity.

However the video does not reveal what caused the stranding – fishing boats or sonar are two possibilities.

Had experts rescued the dolphins, says Simmonds, they may have examined the individuals for damage, such as net marks, that may have provided clues. But he says the dolphins in the video appear to be healthy.

Out of their depth

The topography of the coastline may have disoriented the dolphins, says Michael Moore of the Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. It would not be surprising if offshore dolphins like these had trouble navigating the sandbars and silty seabeds found in shallow waters.

Nor is it surprising that such a large number of dolphins would head for land together. Dolphins are social creatures, so it would take only one member of the pod to go astray – say, if it was diseased – and the others would follow.

This social behaviour is what makes mass strandings of cetaceans so common. In the last month, for example, an unusually high number of dolphins – reportedly 179 – has been stranded in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Call in the experts

Understanding what's going on in such cases is especially hard because scientists must rely largely on postmortem evidence. Moore and others are trying to develop early warning systems to get to the dolphins while they're still alive.

Sensors deployed in regions where strandings are common, for example, could detect the sounds of the cetaceans nearing shore and send a text message warning officials of an imminent stranding.

The Brazilian video has widely been greeted as a good news story. But Simmonds is uneasy about this.

"There's a clock ticking, so it's important to respond quickly, but it's also important to move them in the right ways," he says. Typically it's best not to touch the animals and to call in experts instead, he says. "Pulling their flippers can dislocate their bones, or even pull a flipper right off."

 

[ramonmercado]

Dolphin 'sponging' spans centuries
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19909635
By Matt Bardo
Reporter, BBC Nature

Bottlenose dolphins using sponges to protect their noses while foraging is a technique that the animals discovered in the 19th century, a study has found.

Scientists analysed data on the dolphins of Shark Bay, Australia, to model the appearance and transmission of the skill over generations.

The study found that "sponging" could have begun with a single "innovation event" between 120 and 180 years ago.

It suggested that mothers passed on the skill by teaching their offspring.

The analysis is published in the journal Animal Behaviour, and used previous field studies to investigate how sponging was established and maintained.

"It has been thought that behaviours which are exclusively learnt from one parent are not very stable. With our model we could now show that sponging can be a stable behaviour," said Dr Anna Kopps, a biologist at the University of New South Wales.

Continue reading the main story
Dolphin see, dolphin do?

Watch these clever bottlenose dolphins turn the silty seabed into a fishing net
See how curious dolphins interact with a new toy: a bubble machine
Meet the dolphin as it meets itself, carefully monitoring its own appearance in a mirror
The study created a new technique to calculate the likelihood that the offspring of a "sponger" would learn the ability and pass the skill on.

By modelling the emergence of "sponger" dolphins in a computer simulation, the team could see different scenarios in which the skill could have spread among the dolphin population over the years.

They then compared the results of these simulations with field data on the genetic relationship between the spongers, to estimate the role of mothers teaching their offspring in transmitting the skill.

They found that if the likelihood of a sponger's offspring learning the ability was less than certain, the dolphins that did pick up the technique needed to gain a survival advantage from the skill, in order for the ability to pass on to the next generation.

The model also allowed them to attempt to calculate the date that the behaviour was likely to have originated.

"The results suggested that sponging was innovated at least 120 to 180 years ago - it is only a best estimate," said Dr Kopps.

"Unfortunately, the model did not give us a maximum time span," she said.

The dolphins wear the sponges on their rostrum when foraging on the sea floor, apparently to protect themselves from sharp rocks or shells.

The famous dolphin society of Shark Bay has been a focal point for scientists studying dolphin society for decades.

"Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia, show a wide array of behaviours. For example, 13 different foraging types have been described," said Dr Kopps.


Dolphins may be particularly good at learning new skills from a single parent, according to Dr Kopps
"Sponging is the best-studied... because it is unusual in that it includes the use of a marine sponge as a tool and it is transmitted from mother to offspring," she said.

Attempts to calculate the date of "innovation events" have also been made with chimpanzees.

The excavation of stone nutcracking tools allowed scientists to date chimpanzee tool use back 3,400 years, suggesting it had been transmitted for over 200 generations, but Dr Kopps said that on the whole it has proven difficult to date these innovations.

"If the behaviour involves tool use, artefacts may be found," explained Dr Kopps.

"However, the aquatic habitat makes that very unlikely."

She hopes that the method in her study could now be applied to a wide range of species.

"It would be interesting to use the model we built but based on life history data of other species than dolphins, great apes for example."

"It is possible that dolphin life history characteristics make learning from a single parent more likely and stable than in other species."

Join BBC Nature on Facebook and Twitter: @BBCNature.

 

[ramonmercado]

I knew an Orca who became President of the Oxford Union. Audio at link.

The whale that talked
Captive beluga was able to mimic speech (sort of).
http://www.nature.com/news/the-whale-th ... ed-1.11635
Ewen Callaway
22 October 2012

"What're you lookin' at, kid?"
MIKE TAUBER/BLEND IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

“Who told me to get out?” asked a diver, surfacing from a tank in which a whale named NOC lived. The beluga’s caretakers had heard what sounded like garbled phrases emanating from the enclosure before, and it suddenly dawned on them that the whale might be imitating the voices of his human handlers.

The outbursts — described today in Current Biology1 and originally at a 1985 conference — began in 1984 and lasted for about four years, until NOC hit sexual maturity, says Sam Ridgway, a marine biologist at National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego, California. He believes that NOC learned to imitate humans by listening to them speak underwater and on the surface.

NOC the talking whale
NOC shows off his ability to make human-like sounds.
00:00

A few animals, including various marine mammals, songbirds and humans, routinely learn and imitate the songs and sounds of others. And Ridgway’s wasn’t the first observation of vocal mimicry in whales. In the 1940s, scientists heard wild belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) making calls that sounded like “children shouting in the distance”2. Decades later, keepers at the Vancouver Aquarium in Canada described a beluga that seemed to utter his name, Lagosi.

Ridgway’s team recorded NOC, who is named after the tiny midges colloquially known as no-see-ums found near where he was legally caught by Inuit hunters in Manitoba, Canada, in the late 1970s. His human-like calls are several octaves lower than normal whale calls, a similar pitch to human speech. After training NOC to 'speak' on command, Ridgway’s team determined that he makes the sounds by increasing the pressure of the air that courses through his naval cavities. They think that he then modified the sounds by manipulating the shape of his phonic lips, small vibrating structures that sit above each nasal cavity.

“We do not claim that our whale was a good mimic compared to such well known mimics as parrots,” but it is an example of vocal learning nonetheless, the paper concludes. “It seems likely that NOC’s close association with humans played a role in how often he employed his human voice, as well as in its quality.”

Andy Foote, a marine ecologist at the Univesrity of Copenhagen who has studied vocal learning in killer whales, agrees that NOC's calls sound human. Belugas are known as the 'canaries of the sea,' beacuse of the wide range of their vocal calls. Killer whales, by contrast, produce a more limited range of sounds that rarely stray from the calls of their group, Foote notes, which could explain why Shamu and other captive orcas have never mimicked human speech.

Those looking to hear NOC for themselves will have to settle for these recordings. He died several years ago.

Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2012.11635

References
Ridgway, S., Carder, D., Jeffries, M. & Todd, M. Curr. Biol. 22, R860–R861 (2012).
Article
Show context
Schevill, W. E. & Lawrence, B. Science 109, 143–144 (1949).
ArticlePubMedChemPort
Show context

Related stories and links

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Helium reveals gibbon's soprano skill
23 August 2012
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23 May 2008
Elephants do impressions
23 March 2005

 

[Mythopoeika]

Recording of the whale here:

http://www.newscientist.com/data/av/audio/article/dn22409/121011_ridgway_recording.mp3

It's spookily human. :shock:

 

[GNC]

Recording of the whale here:

http://www.newscientist.com/data/av/audio/article/dn22409/121011_ridgway_recording.mp3

It's spookily human. :shock:

What's it supposed to be saying there?!

Anyone reminded of Day of the Dolphin? "Pa! Pa!"

 

[kamalktk]

Recording of the whale here:

http://www.newscientist.com/data/av/audio/article/dn22409/121011_ridgway_recording.mp3

It's spookily human. :shock:

If the human was speaking through a kazoo. :lol:

 

[ramonmercado]

Recording of the whale here:

http://www.newscientist.com/data/av/audio/article/dn22409/121011_ridgway_recording.mp3

It's spookily human. :shock:

What's it supposed to be saying there?!

Anyone reminded of Day of the Dolphin? "Pa! Pa!"

I'm suffering from stuck tuna syndrome!

 

[ramonmercado]

Vid at link.

Hundreds of dolphins in 'superpod' filmed in Irish Sea
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-20962785

Sea Trust director Cliff Benson said it was an "amazing" sight.

Footage of a "superpod" of hundreds of dolphins has been captured by marine conservationists in the Irish Sea.

The "mind-blowing" footage was recorded by members of Pembrokeshire-based Sea Trust on a routine survey.

The group was conducting its monthly survey on a Fishguard to Rosslare ferry when the common dolphins were spotted leaping from the water.

Sea Trust director Cliff Benson said the sea was "boiling" with dolphins in an "amazing" sight.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

They were coming from every angle and were leaping out of the water”

Cliff Benson
Director, Sea Trust
The charity conducts monthly surveys from the Stena Europe ferry, and on Wednesday morning, about 10 miles off the Irish coast heading towards Fishguard, they spotted the superpod.

"The lovely thing was it was a gorgeous sunny day and the sea was flat and blue," said Mr Benson.

"I had just got some new binoculars with an HD camera on, and suddenly the sea was boiling. It was amazing.

"I was trying to film, and people around me kept saying 'over there, over there'. They were coming from every angle and were leaping out of the water.

"They were just coming and coming. It was the last thing on earth I was expecting in the winter.

"We had at least 250 and that's a conservative estimate. I'm guessing there was as many as 500."

Although dolphin sightings are traditionally more common in warmer months, Mr Benson says Sea Trust has been spotting them all year round since about 2009.

Mr Benson added: "We would expect to see some nowadays in the winter, but this was just mind-blowing."

 

[rynner2]

Vid at link.

Hundreds of dolphins in 'superpod' filmed in Irish Sea
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-20962785

Good to see. I witnessed Irish Sea dolphins several times in the 1970s. Got some photos, somewhere...

 

[ramonmercado]

Good news!

Killer whales escape as Canada's Hudson Bay ice shifts
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20975536

Villagers had planned to rescue the whales with chainsaws and drills

A dozen killer whales trapped under sea ice with only a single breathing hole have reached safety in Canada's Hudson Bay, local villagers have reported.

The winds shifted overnight, pushing floating ice away from the coast and opening the water, Inukjuak village leader Tommy Palliser said.

The whales had been jockeying for space to breathe through a gap in the ice.

They were spotted by a hunter on Tuesday, the day after residents say the bay froze.

Since then, two hunters reported the water had opened around the area where the whales were seen surfacing for air, Mr Palliser said.

"They confirmed that the whales were no longer there and there was a lot of open water," the Inukjuak leader said.


"That's good news for the whales," he added.

But some experts warn that although the whales may have moved away from the waters around Inukjuak, they could still be in danger.

Marine researcher Lyne Morissette said the whales would still have to travel more than 100km (62 miles) to reach the open waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean.

She added that it would be a significant loss for the local whale population if the pod did not make it, CBC News reported.

Many villagers made the one-hour snowmobile ride on Tuesday to see the whales.

The Inukjuak public safety officer told CTV on Wednesday the whales should not even be in the area in January.

On Wednesday, the village asked the Canadian government to send icebreaker ships to help free the whales.

But Inukjuak Mayor Peter Inukpuk said the ships were too far away to help.

Villagers had said they would launch their own rescue operation with chainsaw and drills.

 

[ramonmercado]

Vid at link

Dolphins form life raft to help dying friend
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... riend.html
12:21 25 January 2013 by Michael Marshall

Everybody's favourite cetacean just got a little more lovable. For the first time, dolphins have been spotted teaming up to try to rescue an injured group member. The act does not necessarily mean dolphins are selfless or can empathise with the pain of their kin, however.

Kyum Park of the Cetacean Research Institute in Ulsan, South Korea, and colleagues were surveying cetaceans in the Sea of Japan in June 2008. They spent a day following a group of about 400 long-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus capensis).

In the late morning they noticed that about 12 dolphins were swimming very close together. One female was in difficulties: it was wriggling and tipping from side to side, sometimes turning upside-down. Its pectoral flippers seemed to be paralysed.

Life raft

The other dolphins crowded around it, often diving beneath it and supporting it from below. After about 30 minutes, the dolphins formed into an impromptu raft: they swam side by side with the injured female on their backs. By keeping the injured female above water, they may have helped it to breathe, avoiding drowning (see video, above).

After another few minutes some of the helper dolphins left. The injured dolphin soon dropped into a vertical position. The remaining helpers appeared to try and prop it up, possibly to keep its head above the surface, but it soon stopped breathing, say the researchers. Five dolphins stayed with it and continued touching its body, until it sank out of sight.

"It does look like quite a sophisticated way of keeping the companion up in the water," says Karen McComb at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. Such helping behaviours are only seen in intelligent, long-lived social animals. In most species, injured animals are quickly left behind.

For the love of pod

While it may seem selfless to help an injured fellow, McComb says the helper dolphins might get some benefit. Rescuing the struggling dolphin could help maintain their group, and thus control of their territory. Furthermore, if the group contains close relatives, protecting those relatives helps the dolphins preserve their shared genes.

The simple act of working together could also bond the group more strongly. "It makes a lot of sense in a highly intelligent and social animal for there to be support of an injured animal," McComb says.

The act of helping also seems to suggest that the dolphins understand when others are suffering, and can even empathise: that is, imagine themselves in the place of the suffering dolphin. But while this is possible, McComb says the helping behaviour could evolve without the need for empathy.

There have been reports of single dolphins helping others, generally mothers helping their calves, but no cases of groups of dolphins working together to help another. Dolphins have also been seen interacting with the corpses of dead dolphins, which some researchers interpret as a form of mourning.

Journal reference: Marine Mammal Science, doi.org/kbb

 

[rynner2]

The act of helping also seems to suggest that the dolphins understand when others are suffering, and can even empathise: that is, imagine themselves in the place of the suffering dolphin. But while this is possible, McComb says the helping behaviour could evolve without the need for empathy.

It seems to me that McComb is talking out of his arse.

What about that most important scientific principle:
"If it quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it probably is a duck."
(William of Occam said something similar, I recall.)

I bet McComb also doen't believe robots will ever be intelligent!

 

[ramonmercado]

The act of helping also seems to suggest that the dolphins understand when others are suffering, and can even empathise: that is, imagine themselves in the place of the suffering dolphin. But while this is possible, McComb says the helping behaviour could evolve without the need for empathy.

It seems to me that McComb is talking out of his arse.

What about that most important scientific principle:
"If it quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it probably is a duck."
(William of Occam said something similar, I recall.)

I bet McComb also doen't believe robots will ever be intelligent!

I hope hes beaten up by a cyborg dolphin.

 

[ramonmercado]

Australia dolphins 'saved' by juvenile's distress call
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21313216

About 150 dolphins are thought to have been saved
l
The distress call of a young dolphin has been used to lure a large pod of the animals to safety, after it appeared they would strand themselves in shallow water.

Environment officials in Western Australia caught the juvenile and took it to deeper water, where its distress calls enticed the rest to follow.

One dolphin died in the incident.

A spotter plane reported that the rest - thought to number about 150 - had swum to the safety of the open sea.

The dolphins had been milling in shallow water at Whalers Cove near the town of Albany, on the south coast of the state.

"The juvenile was sending out distress signals, which was calling the dolphins in," conservationist Deon Utber told AFP news agency.

"As soon as it was translocated to deeper waters the pod followed it out and last we saw they were swimming out to sea."

 

[rynner2]

Dolphins 'call each other by name'
By Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter, BBC World Service

[Video The research sheds new light on the intelligence of dolphins]

Scientists have found further evidence that dolphins call each other by "name".
Research has revealed that the marine mammals use a unique whistle to identify each other.
A team from the University of St Andrews in Scotland found that when the animals hear their own call played back to them, they respond.
The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr Vincent Janik, from the university's Sea Mammal Research Unit, said: "(Dolphins) live in this three-dimensional environment, offshore without any kind of landmarks and they need to stay together as a group.
"These animals live in an environment where they need a very efficient system to stay in touch."

It had been-long suspected that dolphins use distinctive whistles in much the same way that humans use names.
Previous research found that these calls were used frequently, and dolphins in the same groups were able to learn and copy the unusual sounds.
But this is the first time that the animals response to being addressed by their "name" has been studied.

To investigate, researchers recorded a group of wild bottlenose dolphins, capturing each animal's signature sound.
They then played these calls back using underwater speakers.
"We played signature whistles of animals in the group, we also played other whistles in their repertoire and then signature whistles of different populations - animals they had never seen in their lives," explained Dr Janik.

The researchers found that individuals only responded to their own calls, by sounding their whistle back.
The team believes the dolphins are acting like humans: when they hear their name, they answer.

Dr Janik said this skill probably came about to help the animals to stick together in a group in their vast underwater habitat.
He said: "Most of the time they can't see each other, they can't use smell underwater, which is a very important sense in mammals for recognition, and they also don't tend to hang out in one spot, so they don't have nests or burrows that they return to."

The researchers believe this is the first time this has been seen in an animal, although other studies have suggested some species of parrot may use sounds to label others in their group.

Dr Janik said that understanding how this skill evolved in parallel [in] very different groups of animals could tell us more about how communication developed in humans.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23410137

 

[ramonmercado]

North Atlantic Killer Whales May Be Branching Into Two Species
2013-08-16 11:30
3 Comments
http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/20 ... wo-species
Andy Foote

Two from one. North Atlantic killer whales may split into two species.

Killer whales (Orcinus orca) can be surprisingly finicky eaters. In the North Pacific and Antarctic, some feed only on fish; others, only on mammals—dietary preferences that seem to have led to new species of orcas. Some researchers think that a similar process is occurring in the killer whale populations of the Northeast Atlantic. But speciation there may be a long time in coming. A new paper examining these orcas’ diets over the last 10,000 years reveals that most are not as picky as their relatives; those eating herring today may be feasting on baby seals tomorrow. The study shows that the Northeast Atlantic whales may only be at the beginning of the speciation process.

Evolutionary biologists have long argued about whether it’s possible for a new species to arise in a population that isn’t separated by geographic barriers, such as an ocean or a mountain range—a process called sympatric speciation. “Killer whales have been thought of by some as something like the poster child” for the process, “because there are multiple genetically distinct populations [which have not yet been formally described as separate species] with different prey preferences in the North Pacific and Antarctic,” says Phillip Morin, a cetacean biologist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego, California, who was not involved in the new study. Scientists have suggested that the orcas separated into distinct species because of what they chose to eat. In this scenario, fish-eaters would mate only with other fish-eaters, and mammal-eaters only with other mammal-eaters. Given enough time, the two populations would become genetically distinct and unable to reproduce.

Some killer whale observers have proposed that the orcas in the Northeast Atlantic also likely comprise two species, because some pods appear to be fish specialists, while others prefer marine mammals. They point out that the orcas’ hunting tactics for the two types of prey differ dramatically and are learned behaviors—cultural differences that may also help drive populations apart.

“When hunting herring, the whales travel in large groups and vocalize a lot,” says Andrew Foote, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen, and lead author of the new study. “But they travel in small groups, three to five animals, and hunt in complete silence when going after seals,” because of the seals’ acute hearing.

To find out if differences in diet and culture have also led to two species of killer whales in the Northeast Atlantic, Foote and his colleagues studied the dietary choices and genetic relationships of orcas from Greenland to Norway. They compared 20 tissue samples taken from modern (1865 to 1995) whale bones and teeth with 23 more ancient samples, dating from 2800 to 6800 years ago, that were collected from archaeological sites and dredging operations. The scientists analyzed the samples’ isotopic ratios—a telltale chemical signature of what the animals ate during their lifetimes. They also extracted DNA from the specimens, and from skin samples of living orcas to reconstruct the whales’ genetic lineages. And they examined the wear-patterns on the animals’ teeth; killer whales that feed heavily on herring have badly worn teeth.

The scientists’ analysis revealed a mixed picture. Although two of the orca populations eat only fish, there was no genetic evidence that they have diverged from those that dine on seals, the team reports online this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“It might be that the whales are at the beginning of what is a very slow process, since all the ecological ingredients are there for a speciation event,” Foote says. He points out that only 10,000 years ago these waters were under ice, and no orcas were to be found, so it may not be a surprise that most of the orcas haven’t differentiated as they have in the North Pacific and Antarctic, where they’ve lived far longer.

Some of the study populations that previously were considered fish-only diners also feast on mammals, the team’s research shows. For instance, the scientists collected samples from a family pod of six orcas that aboriginal hunters in East Greenland had killed. “Each whale had a seal pup in its stomach,” Foote says, “yet their teeth were worn like those of the herring-hunting whales” seen off Iceland. In fact, the researchers’ subsequent analysis showed that these orcas belonged to the population of animals previously considered strictly fish-eaters. Tilikum, SeaWorld’s notorious orca that has killed three people, including one of his trainers, was captured as a youngster in these same waters, Foote notes; while he is fed only fish at SeaWorld, in the wild, he may have eaten marine mammals, too.

“Their data indicate that prey preferences are less fixed in North Atlantic killer whales than in those in the North Pacific and Antarctic,” Morin says. So, in these waters “prey preferences alone don’t appear to be sufficient to cause genetic divergence,” leading to distinct species. The populations may need to be physically separated, too. Still, that may be happening, Foote says. “If the strict fish-eaters stick to their diet, and the groups hunting fish and seals become specialized on mammals, in time, they’ll have fewer encounters with each other, and that could lead to speciation.” And if that’s the case, then Foote and his team have documented one of the rarest of biological events: a population at the very beginning of becoming two species.

 

[rynner2]

14 July 2014 Last updated at 10:06

Dolphin attacks on Cardigan Bay porpoises baffle experts

Dolphin attacks on porpoises in Cardigan Bay have left marine scientists scratching their heads.
Three out of four attacks by bottlenose dolphins noted in recent weeks by volunteers from New Quay-based Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre were fatal.
Science officer Sarah Perry said such attacks are not unknown but it was rare to see it happening in Cardigan Bay.

The centre suggested the attacks may be over competition for food or the result of dolphin mating behaviour.
It said scientists have always known that dolphins attack porpoises but the frequency of recent attacks is a real puzzle.

In May, volunteers at the centre (CBMWC) in Ceredigion rescued a porpoise that stranded on the beach after being chased by dolphins.

Last month researchers saw three dolphins killing a porpoise, with another similar incident a week later.
Then last week three dolphins spent 20 minutes attacking a porpoise close to the centre's research vessel Anna Lloyd.
They repeatedly pounced on the porpoise, forcing it underwater then throwing it in the air close to the boat.
Researcher Milly Metcalfe said: "One of the dolphins in particular was attacking the porpoise while the others joined in from time to time.
"Although we were close by, they took no notice of us, intent on the attack."

The crew brought the porpoise's body on board and found blood was coming from its mouth, suggesting it may have had punctured lungs or other internal injuries, she said.

Ms Perry said the centre had been left baffled by the recent spate of these attacks.
She said: "One possibility is that they see the porpoises as competitors for food, especially if there's a shortage of prey in the area.
"Although porpoises normally go for smaller prey, dolphins will eat anything. However there's been no other indication recently of any shortage."

Another theory is low numbers of females is prompting the attacks by males.
Male dolphins have been known to kill young dolphins in order to mate with the calf's mother. Porpoises are similar in size to a dolphin calf.

The centre said it is unclear which dolphins have been responsible for the attacks.
Mr Perry added: "One animal we're familiar with, Nick, a female, was seen in the area when we rescued the porpoise last month, and she was also seen nearby in last week's attack.
"Our records show that she's been seen before with the animals we think were responsible for the attack, so it may even be that she's teaching the others."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-28289877

 

[ramonmercado]

Angry dolphin strikes again off coast of Galway

Clet was ‘nervous’ before attack. Photo courtesy of www.janploeg.nl
AN experienced dolphin swimmer has described the dramatic moment when an aggressive solitary mammal attacked swimmers off the coast of Co Galway last week.

Last Wednesday, five people were taken to shore by Galway RNLI after the Valentia Coastguard received reports of a dolphin causing difficulty for swimmers in waters off Salthill in Galway.

There was a similar incident last Sunday off the coast of Inis Óirr (Inisheer) - the smallest of the Aran Islands.

Trevor Stoddart, a former member of the Royal Navy, who is now based near Gort, previously had several uneventful swims with Dusty, who has lived in waters off the west coast for the past 14 years, and a second bottlenose dolphin who has been identified as Clet - a young male who was previously sighted in west Cork, and in British and French waters.

But last Sunday things changed dramatically when Clet and Dusty swam close to shore. A young woman tourist waded into the shallow waters still wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Soon after she was struck hard by Clet.

Read more: Five people rescued from water following incident with 'intimidating' dolphin

Within seconds, the agitated animal made for Trevor and attempted to strike him violently on the head and shoulder several times before zooming off. Bottlenose dolphins weigh between 200kg and 300kg, and the pair were lucky to escape with nothing more than shock and severe bruising. Trevor said he had sensed Clet was "nervous" before the attack. ...

- See more at: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ne ... rDfeM.dpuf

 

[ramonmercado]

Captive orcas speak dolphin

Two years ago, scientists showed that dolphins imitate the sounds of whales. Now, it seems, whales have returned the favor. Researchers analyzed the vocal repertoires of 10 captive orcas (Orcinus orca), three of which lived with bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and the rest with their own kind. Of the 1551 vocalizations these seven latter orcas made, more than 95% were the typical pulsed calls of killer whales. In contrast, the three orcas that had only dolphins as pals busily whistled and emitted dolphinlike click trains and terminal buzzes, the scientists report in the October issue of The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. (Watch a video as bioacoustician and co-author Ann Bowles describes the difference between killer whale and orca whistles.) The findings make orcas one of the few species of animals that, like humans, is capable of vocal learning—a talent considered a key underpinning of language.

http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-anima ... ak-dolphin

 

[GNC]

Anyone else seen that disturbing documentary Blackfish? If we could teach the captive orcas English they'd be saying "Let me out!"

 

[Anome]

Captive orcas speak dolphin

Two years ago, scientists showed that dolphins imitate the sounds of whales. Now, it seems, whales have returned the favor.

Umm...orcas aren't whales. They're actually dolphins. Or, more accurately, they're more closely related to dolphins than true whales.

The fact that they seem to be learning bottle-nose dolphin from dolphins in captivity is both fascinating, and disturbing. Fascinating because it shows a type of learning behaviour previously only seen in primates. Well, humans. And maybe some birds. But it's still fascinating.

Disturbing because it suggests intelligence on some level, and we've locked them up to watch them jump through hoops.

 

[ramonmercado]

They went there on porpoise.

Dolphins set up home in the Mediterranean after the last Ice Age
Date:
February 18, 2015

Source:
University of Lincoln

Summary:
The bottlenose dolphin colonized the Mediterranean only after the last Ice Age - about 18,000 years ago – according to new research.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150218073004.htm

 

[Bigphoot2]

Blue whale spotted in English seas 'for the first time' in waters off Cornwall
Scientists photographed the huge mammal 250 miles off the Cornish coast in what is believed to be the first ever sighting in English waters

An incredibly rare sighting of a Blue Whale in English waters was captured on camera by scientists on-board the RRS James Cook Photo: The National Oceanography Centre

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By David Barrett

12:02PM BST 02 Sep 2015

46 Comments


A blue whale has been spotted 250 miles off the coast of Cornwall in what experts believe is the first sighting in English waters of the world's largest animal.

A scientific expedition caught the mammal on camera by chance, and captured what they described as "conclusive" photographs of the creature.

It was estimated to be twice as long as a double-decker bus.

Prof Russell Wynn, of the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), who took the photographs, said “I was undertaking our daily marine mammal survey and enjoying watching up to seven fin whales around the ship, when the blue whale suddenly surfaced about a kilometre away.

"I had just enough time to secure some conclusive photos before the visibility decreased and the whale disappeared into the gloom.”

Full story here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...or-the-first-time-in-waters-off-Cornwall.html

 

[rynner2]

Full story here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...or-the-first-time-in-waters-off-Cornwall.html

Hmphh! In English Seas?

The dramatic encounter between man and giant mammal took place on August 24, approximately 250 miles (400 kilometres) south west of Cornwall, over a deep-sea canyon on the northern margin of the Bay of Biscay.

Possibly this is just within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone...

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ta/file/346014/UK_Exclusive_Economic_Zone.pdf

...but it's just as close to France!

Sarah Goddard, species policy officer for the World Wildlife Fund, said: “It’s exciting to see a blue whale this close the British coastline and we hope their numbers are growing since the whaling moratorium was passed.

But it's not 'close to the British coastline' - it's way out in the Atlantic! Draw a 250 mile radius circle, centred on the Scilly Isles, and you'd include not only much of England but big chunks of Ireland, Wales and France too! Ireland is about 131 nm away, and Wales and Brittany are about 104 nm away.

(Several Comments about the article make similar points. )

 

[rynner2]

Not sure where to put this, as it seems to be a one-off: a Whale with no Tail!

Whale missing tail fins spotted off New Zealand

A humpback whale missing most of its tail has been spotted off New Zealand.
The whale was first seen on Monday off the coast of Kaikoura on the north-east coast of South Island.

It was not clear how it came to lose its flukes, said local Department of Conservation ranger Mike Morrissey, but "it could have been the result of entanglement" in fishing nets.
But despite what looks like a severe injury, the whale seemed to be doing fine, he told the BBC.
"It appeared to be in good health and it's bending in the water and using its pectoral fins to spin around," Mr Morrissey said.

Whales are sometimes caught in fishing gear, which can injure or kill them.
The tears appear to have happened at least a year ago, Mr Morrissey added, as the images show little sign of open wounds.
"This is a young whale and it has healed up. It doesn't seem to have affected it much at all," he said.

It is the first time anyone in the area has seen a whale like it, he added, but he held out hope it might return.
"If it's migrating, then we'll see it again," he said.

Humpback whales have begun their annual migration from Antarctic feeding grounds to breeding grounds in the South Pacific.
Anyone who spots the whale is asked to report it to the Department of Conservation on +64 800 36 24 68, so it can can be tracked.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35818690

Pics on page. But despite what might have been a fatal injury, this whale seems to have learned to swim again. It would be interesting to see how it gets on with other humpbacks, so I hope we do hear more. If so, perhaps this post could become the start of a new thread?

 

[Frideswide]

yes - follow ups please