Have they tried testing this on dogs, too? I assume they don't do that, but it would be interesting if they did the test on dogs, too.
Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
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Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#12John Lilly, who spent years working with dolphins, believed that they were smart enough to be cute and friendly to humans because they understood how dangerous we were.
Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#13That is an interesting result. Some birds mimic other bird's songs but I don't know of an example in the bird family where an individual had a unique song.
Parrots might be naming their young:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/grrlscientist/2012/sep/22/...
Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#14“Hey everybody! I’m an adult healthy male named George, and I mean you no harm!”
That would be more like "Hey everyone, I'm George". Humans also 'encode' information in that sense - from that introduction you could probably tell age, general health and friendliness.
The day we can talk to any stranger dolphin and have a real conversation will be alike to contacting alien life.
Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#15After some rabbit hole googling related to my 'Seaquarium' digression below, I encountered this 2010 transcript[1] of an ex-Flipper trainer:
"Flipper was a wild animal that lived in Biscayne Bay before we captured her and dragged her, kicking and screaming, to the Miami Seaquarium and put her in a tank and gave her a stage name, Flipper. Her name was really Cathy. Well, not really. Her real name was [whistles]. Dolphins have a signature whistle that their mother gives them." - Ric O'Barry
So it seems like this research proves what dolphin trainers have known, ostensibly, for many years?
[1] http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/16/filmmakers_activists_t...
====== OT:
> The researchers also intensely studied four captive adult male dolphins housed at The Seas Aquarium, also in Florida.
Made me giggle. Don't they mean, the [Miami] Seaquarium? If so, Flipper[1][2] is part of the study!
[1] http://miamiseaquarium.com/Shows/Flipper-Dolphin
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipper_(1964_TV_series)#Filmin...
Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#16Have they tried testing this on dogs, too? I assume they don't do that, but it would be interesting if they did the test on dogs, too.
And ferrets.
Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#17Dolphins are exactly why I feel SETI is such a misguided (in a sweet way) effort. Here we are, searching for extraterrestrial intelligence while we can't even communicate with the other intelligent species on our own planet. Glad to see we're making progress though!
SETI is about finding alien signals, not necessarily understanding them. However, it's likely that any extraterrestrial intelligence capable of sending out signals powerful enough to reach us, will have an understanding of science and mathematics, which is more than we have in common with dolphins.
Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#18Someone should define a canonical way to transform dolphins' whistles into syllables. Then we could at least sort of refer to them by their names.
Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#19Dolphins are exactly why I feel SETI is such a misguided (in a sweet way) effort. Here we are, searching for extraterrestrial intelligence while we can't even communicate with the other intelligent species on our own planet. Glad to see we're making progress though!
Parrots call each other by names as well[1] and crows have been shown to speak in two different dialects depending if they are with a group or among individuals[2]. In the same link about crows, they have also been seen using tools in the wild and in experiments using "meta tools", something that only primates have been observed doing (using one tool to reach another tool that will be used for their end goal [general…
Modern culture is filled with prejudices towards non-human forms of life. Not only are animals taken for granted and exploited for the well-being of the human species, which is wrongfully considered a "superior" life form, but life itself is taken for granted. Realizing just "now" that non-human life forms are more complex than we thought is simply because our ability to even be open minded about that possibility was completely suffocated by the hubris of humanity.
Re: Dolphins Call Each Other By Name
#20Unbelievable that humans still kill these amazing animals