Animals & nature · 2013
Do bottlenose dolphins use each other’s distinctive whistles to call to one another?
The evidence suggests they do. Wild bottlenose dolphins called back when they heard a copy of their own distinctive whistle, but did not respond to whistles that were not their own. This supports the idea that these learned calls are used to address particular dolphins, without establishing that they are equivalent to human names.
Details
Bottlenose dolphins develop a distinctive whistle that signals their individual identity. The identity information is in the whistle itself, rather than depending on the caller’s voice characteristics. Copying that whistle could therefore be a way to address the dolphin it identifies.
The researchers tested how wild dolphins responded to hearing copies of their own whistles compared with whistles that were not their own. Dolphins called back to their own whistle copies, but did not respond to the other whistles. That contrast supports the researchers’ interpretation that a learned whistle can function as an individual label when dolphins address one another.
The abstract does not report the number of dolphins tested or the size of the response difference, so it does not allow a detailed assessment of how consistent the finding was. The result supports individual addressing, rather than demonstrating human-like naming or language.
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