'Whales' and Dolphins Work Together

False killer whales (Pseudorca Crassidens)

False killer whales and bottlenose dolphins in New Zealand form long-term partnerships that might help them fend off predators or find food, researchers suggest.

Masters student Jochen Zaeschmar, and colleagues, from Massey University's Coastal-Marine Research Group, report their findings in a recent issue of Mammal Review.

"There is a long-term association between, not just the two species, but between actual individuals," says Zaeschmar.

False killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) are actually a rare type of dolphin that are sometimes found together with bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus).

But, until now there has been little research to investigate whether this association is just a matter of coincidence, or whether there issomething more to it.

"The first time I ever saw them together I was intrigued straight away because it seemed to be not random," says Zaeschmar. "They were so happy in each others' company. It was almost like it was one species."

False killer whales are three times the volume and two times the length of bottle nose dolphins and are jet black rather than grey.

Fin Identification System

In a study spanning 17 years and 700 kilometres of territory in New Zealand waters, Zaeschmar and colleagues studied the movements of 61 false killer whales and 200 bottle nose dolphins, identifying individual animals by unique markings on their fins.

"There are nicks and notches and cuts in the backs of their fin that they accumulate over time - and they're permanent," says Zaeschmar. "We produced an identification catalogue for each species."

The study was challenging, with researchers having to get up close to take photos of the fins while the animals were moving in the open ocean.

But the findings have been worth the trouble.

"Not only are we seeing the same whales over and over again, but also the same dolphins," says Zaeschmar.

"They basically do everything together. They feed together, they travel together, they rest together. We have not seen any physical state where they have not been together."

The animals also have physical contact and have been known to produce viable hybrids in captivity.

"It's a pretty exciting thing that these relationships last much longer than we thought," says Zaeschmar.

Safety In Numbers

Zaeschmar offers a number of theories as to why this long-term association exists.

One idea is that there is safety in numbers - the more individuals there are in a group, the more eyes there are looking out for predators, and if a predator does come, the less chance there is of any one individual being chosen.

"It's a win-win," says Zaeschmar.

Another idea is that joining forces makes it easier to spot food sources. In the open ocean food can be tricky to find, but is usually in great abundance once it is found, he says.

"There may also be just a strong social component," adds Zaeschmar.

He says the animals have similar vocalisations so it stands to reason they can communicate with each other, and the two have also been known to hybridise in captivity.

But, says Zaeschmar, it is very difficult to test the different hypotheses because the animals are always together.

The study was only able to observe the false killer whales and bottle nose dolphins during the period of December to May, when the animals are assumed to be following warmer currents in search of food.

Zaeschmar says his team has no idea where the animals go during the other months of the year but future studies could use satellite tagging to investigate whether the animals continue to associate with each other during this time.

False killer whales were originally confused with real killer whales in the 1800s because of similarities in their skull structure. The animals also have big teeth like killer whales.

And it is a curious fact that in some parts of the world they sometimes eat other dolphins or whales, says Zaeschmar.

"In New Zealand they obviously have a very different relationship with dolphins, which all adds to the mystery," he says.

Coming Ashore

Predators are forced to specialize and devise new strategies when they're confined by geography, other species... or changing conditions.

Dolphin Assisted Fishing

Laguna is a Brazilian city located in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

An interesting collaboration has developed in Laguna: a pod of bottlenose dolphins drive fish towards fishermen who stand at the beach in shallow waters. Then one dolphin rolls over, which the fishermen take as sign to throw out their nets. The dolphins feed on the escaping fish. 

They were not trained for this behavior; the collaboration has been going on at least since 1847. The phenomenon – which also occurs in parts of West Africa but nowhere else in the world – has for years attracted marine biologists and natural historians to Laguna to study the bizarre, communal relationship.

Via: Fishing Rod Cases

Dolphins Form Life Raft To Help Dying Friend

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 socialanimals. 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.

Via: "New Scientist"

Whales Give Dolphins A Lift

Many species interact in the wild, most often as predator and prey. But recent encounters between humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins reveal a playful side to interspecies interaction. 

In two different locations in Hawaii, scientists watched as dolphins "rode" the heads of whales: the whales lifted the dolphins up and out of the water, and then the dolphins slid back down. 

The two species seemed to cooperate in the activity, and neither displayed signs of aggression or distress. 

Whales and dolphins in Hawaiian waters often interact, but playful social activity such as this is extremely rare between species. 

The latest Bio Bulletin from the Museum's Science Bulletins program presents the first recorded examples of this type of behavior. Visitors to AMNH may view the video in the Hall of Biodiversity until February 9, 2012. 

Science Bulletins is a production of the National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology (NCSLET), part of the Department of Education at the American Museum of Natural History. 

Find out more about Science Bulletins athttp://www.amnh.org/sciencebulletins/.

Introductions Are In Order: Signature Whistles

Posted by "CavalierZee"
Courtesy Of "Discover Magazine"


Nicola Quick and Vincent Janik from the University of St Andrews have found that groups of Bottlenose Dolphins, When they meet one another in the wild, they exchange “signature whistles”. These whistles are unique to each individual, and they’re strikingly similar to human names. And it seems that they’re a standard part of a dolphin’s meet-and-greet etiquette.


Signature whistles were first discovered by Melba and David Caldwell in the 1960s, but we still know relatively little about how they’re used. We know that bottlenose dolphins develop their signatures when they’re a few months old, possibly modelling them on those of their mothers. They can go unchanged for decades, although males will sometimes change their whistles to resemble that of a new ally.


The signature whistles seem to act like badges of identity. One dolphin can learn information about another by listening to its whistle. But they’re not entirely like human names. For a start, they’re invented, rather than bestowed. They also convey more than just identity – they reveal the caller’s motivation or mood. “It’s a bit like in human language, where you can hear if a person sounds happy or sad, not in the choice of words they make, but in subtle acoustic features in their speech,” explains Janik.


In captivity, a dolphin will emit its signature whistle if separated from the rest of its group. This suggests that the whistles could act as contact calls, which they continuously make to stay in touch. Dolphins can even mimic each other’s signatures, perhaps just as we call each other by name. But in the wild, no one knows exactly how the whistles are used. They’re clearly common part of dolphin life – half of all the calls recorded from wild dolphins are signature whistles. 


To investigate the role of signature whistles, scientists needed to work with free-swimming dolphins. That’s easier said than done. In the past, people have captured wild dolphins, recorded their calls, identified the signature whistles, and released the animals. How do you parse out a specific signal from the underwater cacophony of a fast-moving dolphin pod?

Janik found a way in Florida, while working with Randy Wells. Together, they noticed that the signature whistles have a distinctive rhythm. “The whistles occurring within 1 to 10 seconds of each other,” he says, “and you can use this pattern to identify signature whistles in free-swimming animals. Using the methods he perfected in Florida, Janik returned to Scotland, to work with a group of dolphins he had been studying since 1994.

Quick and Janik recorded the calls of swimming dolphin pods using underwater microphones. From 11 such recordings, they worked out that dolphin groups use their signature whistles in greeting rituals, when two groups meet and join. Only 10 per cent of such unions happen without any signature whistles. And the dolphins use their signatures nine times more often during these interactions than during normal social contact.

The signature whistles clearly aren’t contact calls, because dolphins hardly ever use them within their own groups. Mothers and calves, for example, didn’t exchange signature whistles when travelling together. And they’re not confrontational claims over territory, because bottlenose dolphins don’t have territories.

Instead, Janik thinks that dolphins use the whistles to identify themselves, and to negotiate a new encounter. The human equivalent would be saying, “My name is Ed. I come in peace.” Janik explains, “You often see ritualised behaviour sequences when animals meet. We say hello or shake hands. That doesn’t have much meaning – it’s just what you do when you meet someone else.”

But the recordings threw up a big surprise: not every dolphin exchanges its signature whistle when two groups meet up. Usually, just one member of each group does so.

Reference: Quick & Janik. 2011. Bottlenose dolphins exchange signature whistles when meeting at sea. Proc Roy Soc B. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.2537

Photos by NASA and BBMI explorer