Dolphins greet each other by name

reply to post by Nicolas Flamel


"If dolphins are so smart, why do they live in igloos?" - Cartman

2nd.

reply to post by Azadok


Amazing isn't it? We are so smart and technology advanced and we can't even tell that a local species can communicate their name and their intentions. It makes you wonder if we could identify an alien species, on a different planet or here, as intelligent. Obviously, in 200 years humans will realize how dumb we used to be, just as we do today about 200 years ago. We should be humbled at how much we don't know, instead of assuming that we are superior and at the top of the universal food-chain. When in fact, we may be so low on the food-chain that we don't even recognize that a super intelligence is around us.

reply to post by rickymouse


They would if they had the intelligence to do it. Don't start with the human hating rubbish.

Janik calls these names "signature whistles" and he claims only humans and dolphins have personal "names" used to identify each other.

Dogs do too.

When we're at the doggie play park and I call Lucy - she comes running to me, not Jake, Buck, Riley, Abby or Sam, her play buddies just Lucy.

And she'll turn her head back to tell her buds, "Mom's calling me, I'll be right back guys".

If one would only take the time to the animals, they are more like us than you think.

Also, on our farm, when I called Molly over she would come over - she knew her name, so did Rosie and Daisy (Daisy wouldn't come because she had a bit of a attitude, sort of like a bad girl thing going on.)

For that matter, our 20+ year old cat, Jack comes when you call his name and will sit on command.

Good post because threads like this are making humans aware that animals aren't "just dumb animals" - S&F.

A excellent book I highly recommend is Dominion by Matthew Scully:

whales are similar. i saw a study where they listened to the whale songs and they were all the same thing, then another whale from another part of the ocean came in with a different song. the whole population adopted this new song as theirs. look it up. its pretty interesting too. i just got my new dolphin name. its beep beep click skreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! who knows i probably just called myself an idiot, or said hey, thats a bad tuna.well never know.

Click here for more information.

Originally posted by grey580
Holy crap.
If this is true it certainly raises some issues.
If Dolphins are aware enough to know their own names and can tell other dolphins as well then it's another clue to their level of intelligence.
And how do we deal with them now?

What strikes me is that if dolphins have this amount of awareness and intelligence beyond what we observed about them, than other animals must also have more on the ball than we notice. Not as much as dolphins maybe, but still more than we thought. So it seems to me we should rethink the entire program regarding animals.

Originally posted by Azadok

Originally posted by grey580
Holy crap.
If this is true it certainly raises some issues.
If Dolphins are aware enough to know their own names and can tell other dolphins as well then it's another clue to their level of intelligence.
And how do we deal with them now?

If you read genesis in its original Hebrew it quite clearly states that some animals have souls just like man , I think many animals communicate on a level just like us but we clearly can not understand . It is mans arrogance that leads him to believe he is superior and only species capable of verbal communication .

Does it give any indication which animals those are?

reply to post by Nicolas Flamel






I'm sorry, it had to be done..... This is amazing. I can't wait until a linguist works out the first english Dolphin Dictionary! Ha ha, wait that sounds like a bigger piece of bull# than obama's Birth Certificate. I can't remember, but doesn't a certain species of birds make up their own calls ? Actually, Haven't all Birds recently been discovered to have altered their calls due to all the noise pollution... Pbbbbttttttt I really don't care. I'm gonna go get me some hot n sweet fin soup.

Originally posted by Nicolas Flamel
reply to post by grey580

 

And how do we deal with them now?

Awareness is growing. "The Cove" documentary had a huge impact (don't watch this if your squeamish).

Organizations like the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society should be given more support.

The International Whaling Commission should enforce already existing laws so countries don't hunt whales and dolphins in large numbers for "research purposes". Ultimately this also involves a cultural change in countries like Japan, Norway and Iceland. But progress is slowly being made.

The problem is in the course of fishing they get trapped in nets by the thousands.

They greet other cetaceans by name also. They know my name, all of them. This is strange because I only met a few of them. I think all of them know everyone's name that only one of them have met. Kinda like facebook.

reply to post by grey580


The same way we always have. By belittling them and making them do tricks for fish and swimming with spoiled brats. If it was officially found out that dolphins are smarter then us (which is what I think. The US Navy used to train them to recover mines and underwater demolitions. Tell me that ain't smart.), we would probably come up with a new recipe for dolphin soup. We don't really respond that well, as a species, when our intelligence is questioned. If we ever had First Contact with an Extra-Terrestrial entity, we would probably shoot first and then ask their name.

reply to post by xXxinfidelxXx


When I was about 5 years old I saw dolphins swimming off the bow of a boat I was on. A man onboard pulled out his pistol and was going to shoot them, thinking they were sharks. My father stopped him. Unfortunatly most of the human population reacts the same way to anything non-human. Somtimes they even react that way to other races within ours.

Nice thread.

Crows fascinate me, too.

Here's some information about the author of the study:

Dr. Vincent Janik is a member of the Sea Mammal Research Unit and the Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution (SLACE) at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

Besides getting his PhD, he also did some work with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA (whose members included Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic). He's also a Royal Society University Research Fellow (like Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking among others).

biology.st-andrews.ac.uk...

His work with dolphins is ongoing:

Janik and his colleagues are now studying how the dolphins develop their personalized whistles. They're also investigating the hypothesis that the whistles act as a dolphin's name by recording wild dolphins' signature whistles and playing them back to the animals.

www.livescience.com...

Originally posted by grey580
Holy crap.
If this is true it certainly raises some issues.
If Dolphins are aware enough to know their own names and can tell other dolphins as well then it's another clue to their level of intelligence.
And how do we deal with them now?

Well considering the options in the upcomming presidential race, I say we put two on the ballot. Also, ummmm make absolutely sure both of them were born in US waters!

reply to post by indigo21


So you are saying that the builders of "weapons of mass destruction" are the most intelligent humans? I am human so how can I be a human hater?

Originally posted by grey580
Holy crap.
If this is true it certainly raises some issues.
If Dolphins are aware enough to know their own names and can tell other dolphins as well then it's another clue to their level of intelligence.
And how do we deal with them now?

First all, SUPER OP! I would love to have the translations of their names and to know how they would name me.

Grey580, what do you mean with how to treat them now? All life should be treated as good as possible. The dolphins have their habitat now and for now we rule the world. Maybe evolution (aided by us or not) will take us elsewhere and another species will become the most intelligent.