Way Of The Dolphin: Intelligence From The Deep

I’ve always appreciated intelligence in nature. Often times we as human beings think that we are the only living beings that can reason, problem solve, feel emotion, and communicate complex ideas. I want to open your mind into the world of dolphins (yes, dolphins), the sea creatures that we all know and love. The sea creatures that, more often than not, we see on TV or in captivity.

How We Got Here

I’ve always known through observation that dolphins were intelligent, but the extent of their intelligence remains beyond my comprehension. These creatures can reason. They can emote. They can have conversations. They can even make moral decisions (good and bad). We are more alike than I had originally thought.

The icing on the cake was after seeing Avatar: Way of the Water. The creatures in that movie referred to as Tulkun were portrayed as highly intelligent sea creatures with culture, language, distant memories, and complex reasoning patterns. I suspect they are based on dolphins, although nothing I’ve read about the movie suggests that. Maybe I missed the memo.

Mind Reframed

No longer is the question, are these beings intelligent? The more interesting question is, what environmental and social pressures do they face on a daily basis? Only then can we begin to scratch the surface of how intelligent these being truly are.

Dolphin Origin Story

Dolphins are aquatic mammals that descended from the Cetaceans (large predators with large teeth), who existed 55 million years ago. A drastic change in water temperature 35 million years ago reduced the availability of live prey, forcing surviving descendants to adapt, or go extinct.

*Skull of a pink Amazonian dolphin (Inia geoffrensis)*

A Cetacean–descended group called Odontocetes were able to survive. They had smaller teeth, but larger and more complex brains that allowed for social relationships and echolocation. As generations of these creatures progressed into what we know as dolphins, intelligence and highly-involved social interaction became their means of survival, and their brains adapted accordingly.

Most species of dolphin can live over 50 years, but Orcas (a type of dolphin, also known as killer whales) can live to age 90!

Brain Power

Brain size of a creature relative to its body size is what’s known as the encephalization quotient. This quotient in dolphins is second only to humans. Not even the brain of a chimpanzee compares to this!

Dolphins also have an extremely well-developed and defined paralimbic system, which is responsible for processing emotions. Many scientists have concluded that dolphins’ highly-developed paralimbic systems play a critical role in the intimate and complex social and emotional bonds that exist within dolphin communities.

Cognitive Ability

Dolphins are among the most intelligent animals in the ocean, due to their superior cognitive ability. They can learn vocally and with symbols, as is shown in the wild and in captivity. They can also (very quickly) solve complex problems, independently and cooperatively, with or without tools.

By studying dolphins in captivity using a Mirror Test (placing a mirror in front of an animal and observing how they respond), scientists have determined that dolphins can recognize their bodies and their own thoughts (a process called metacognition).

*Captive dolphin looking in the mirror*.

When presented with a mirror, dolphins seem very interested. They move rapidly, spin upside-down, blow bubbles, open their mouth, stick out their tongue, and exhibit all kinds of silly behaviors (just like humans would do).

To expand on this further, scientists have also performed the Mark Test, a process where someone places a non-permanent marking on the side of a dolphin, prior to presenting it with the Mirror Test. Dolphins without the marking exhibit the same behaviors described earlier, but dolphins with the marking repeatedly put the marked side of their body directly into the mirror, to further examine the marking.

Social Creatures

It is said that dolphins have their own culture and language with oral histories. Examining this further, research shows that different dolphin populations exhibit variations in the way they greet each other (different dialects), hunting strategies, and other behaviors. It is no surprise that they have distant memories, and can remember the names of social partners they’ve been separated from for 20+ years.

Dolphins also have empathy, altruism, and attachment. They have a habit of helping injured individuals, as is shown by numerous reports of dolphins carrying humans to the surface to breathe.

Groups of dolphins form cliques, they mate, they rival, they play (Spinner dolphins can be seen playing catch with leaves in the water). They teach each other behaviors, take care of elders, and even mourn their dead!

Dolphins band together to create complex social networks that allow them to ward off rivals, raise offspring, and strategically hunt.

*Dolphin pod hunting a school of fish cooperatively*.

Hunting Strategies

It is apparent that dolphins adapt their hunting strategies based on geographic location. Often times a pod of dolphins will chase and surround schools of fish, but have other creative ways of catching their prey as well. This includes a technique called Crater Feeding, where a dolphin uses echolocation to find fish in the ground, then creates a crater in the seafloor with its nose (rostrum) until it can pull the buried fish out.

*Pod of dolphins Crater Feeding together*.

Dolphins have been observed off the coast of Florida using what’s referred to as a mud net strategy. This technique requires deliberate and intelligent communication and planning. The net maker kicks up mud around the target school of fish, then another dolphin signals to the rest of the pod that they should line up and catch the fish in their mouths (because the fish don’t swim through the mud, they jump out of the water).

*A pod of dolphins mud net fishing as a team*.

Dolphin Tools

Their strategies extend to the use of tools as well. A group of Bottlenose Dolphins off the Australian coast referred to as the Dolphin Sponge Club have learned how to cover their nose (rostrums) with sponges when rooting in sharp corals to protect themselves from sharp objects. They have successfully passed this down from mother to (usually) daughter.

Dusky Dolphins have also been observed near Argentina using communication in a cooperative feeding event to eat anchovies. They leap out of the water to create a splash, which call dolphins from across the bay. Penguins and birds have been seen joining in on this feast as well!

The biggest and most intelligent dolphin, the Orca, uses a Stranding Behavior to hunt sea lion pups on the shoreline. In a well-timed strike, the Orca will accelerate up on the shore of the beach and temporarily strand themselves to catch its meal (the sea lion pups). For this to work, the tide conditions must be perfect.

Gruesome Fact: female Orcas will sometimes play with the dead sea lion pup (by kicking it in the air repeatedly. Scientists believe this is a teaching ritual for its calf (the baby Orca).

You Speak Dolphin?

Like toothed whales, bats, shrews, and some birds, dolphins use a physiological process called echolocation (also known as bio sonar), to communicate with each other. This gift allows them to locate distant, sometimes invisible objects using only sound waves, which travel four and a half times faster in water than on land.

During the process of echolocation, dolphins force air through their nasal passages to produce sequences of short, broad-spectrum burst-pulses known as click trains.

Their clicks can travel 1500 meters (1640 yards) per second and return to it’s lower jaw bones, indicating something is nearby. They use it to find both food sources and potential threats.

Dolphins also have the capacity to communicate through language. They even have distinct names for each other. Each dolphin also have a “signature whistle” that announces their presence or lets others in the pod (collective of dolphins) know where they are. They have even been observed using their signature whistle loudly when in distress.

As previously mentioned, dolphins naturally communicate through pulses, clicks, and whistles, rather than vision. They have an extensive and complex communication system that allows them to decipher exactly which member of the pod is speaking.

Dolphins have demonstrated language comprehension. They can interpret symbols that represent objects and actions, as well as the syntax for how the symbols are governed (For example, understanding “bring the ball to the hoop” vs “bring the hoop to the ball”).

Dolphins learn language over time as their brain develops, similar to humans. At a young age, they seem to “babble” and as they get older they become more “articulate”. One study published in 2016 found that the vocalizations of the Black Sea Bottlenose Dolphin were “signals of a highly advanced spoken language“. This indicates that they can carry on conversations, and form complex sentences.

“Click click, pulse click click, pulse.”

“Click pulse, pulse click, click click!”

Pandora’s Box

Dr. Denise Herzing has been studying Spotted Dolphins in the Bahamas for 30+ years, where she’s implemented a device called CHAT (Cetacean Hearing And Telemetry). CHAT is an underwater computer designed by a Dr. Thad Starner and his team at Georgia Tech. CHAT receives sounds via two hydrophones, and produces sounds through an underwater speaker.

The CHAT box can translate dolphin vocals to English (once a translation has been identified and confirmed, there are not many)! It can also “speak” understood translations back to the dolphins. Their goal is to create 2-way communication with dolphins, to better understand and protect them.

Have We Gone Too Far?

I’m not sure I want them to succeed. The dolphins might be better off that way. What are the benefits and consequences of establishing 2-way communication with dolphins anyway? Why does this protect them? What does this say about human nature? Could this be a case of opening up Pandora’s Box?

In contrast, I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t interested in the future of this project and this device.

The Dark Side

When I said dolphins were like humans, I meant it. We all know that with great power comes great responsibility (any Spiderman fans here?), and naturally there will be those that choose the unrighteous path.

That being said, there are dolphins that have a dark side as well, that many people don’t know about.

Bottlenose dolphins are known to form gangs (male alliances of 5-6 dolphins). These gangs were seen capturing female dolphins, beating, biting and then forcibly mating with them, against the will of the victim.

*Male dolphin bullying a female into mating.*

Dolphins were also observed committing infanticide (a dolphin killing the young of another female dolphin to increase likelihood that it can procreate with her instead).

Dolphin wars have also been reported. A study in the 1990s discovered a large group of young dolphins with lacerations, bruises, and bite marks from what appeared to be another large group of dolphins.

Dolphins have even been observed pushing Scuba divers down towards the bottom of the sea. It is good to note that dolphins can weigh around 400 lbs, so it is not easy to escape them, especially underwater.

Dolphin Bureau of Investigation?

Dolphin pods have also been observed murdering individual dolphins “just for the fun of it“. My theory is that there IS a reason, but we just don’t understand it. What if they have a police force? An FBI? A militant organization that hunts down offenders who have committed crimes years ago? A mafia?

The Legend Continues

The universe of dolphins is an intriguing one. There is so much to learn about how they live, what they know, the extent of their consciousness. I still am left with many outstanding questions: What do they know of mankind? How do they feel about us? What is the exact nature of their societal organization? What does their oral history contain?