Bottlenose dolphin.VINCENT M. JANIK, UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWSOne of the most fascinating aspects of language is the ability to name individuals, objects, and places with a signature sound. While human language skills may be unique, African Grey parrots and captive bottlenose dolphins have been taught to link specific sets of sounds with objects—a rare ability in the animal kingdom. But whether, and in what contexts, these animals apply the same principles in the wild has been hotly debated. Now, research published yesterday (July 22) in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that dolphins do use and respond to individual names.
In the first few months of life, each bottlenose dolphin develops what’s known as a “signature whistle”—a collection of notes unique to each dolphin. Though dolphins mostly stick to their own whistle, anecdotal evidence suggested that dolphins sometimes copy each others signature whistles. “But it wasn’t understood why [they might copy each other], or who produced the copies,” explained Stephanie King, a marine mammal scientist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who led the new research. Because the signature whistles are unique, it was conceivable that dolphins could be using them to label or address other dolphins, King noted.
In order to get a clearer sense of who calls whose whistle and under what circumstances, King and her collaborators first recorded calls of ...
