DOLPHINS can learn to communicate with other creatures – and teach “tail walking” tricks, according to research.
New insights into the cetaceans are covered in work by Strathclyde and St Andrews universities.
PhD research student Mel Cosentino, from the former, studied audio recordings of lone short-beaked common dolphin Kylie, who is often seen with harbour porpoises in the Firth of Clyde after getting lost from his group almost 20 years ago.
Recordings made by volunteers from the Clyde Porpoise group using towed underwater microphones found Kylie, when accompanied by harbour porpoises, regularly produces clicks with peak frequencies reaching more than 130KHz – sounds far above the range of the whistles and barks made by dolphins. Cosentino said: “Several cetacean species, such as bottlenose dolphins, belugas and killer whales, have the ability to change their acoustic repertoire as a result of interactions with other species.
“This vocal learning ability has mainly been observed in captive individuals and few cases have been reported for wild cetaceans.”
Cosentino aims to gather and analyse more recordings to verify her findings. She said: “If further analysis shows this to be the case, it would be the first time a common dolphin, either in captivity or the wild, has demonstrated an ability for production learning, where it has learned to imitate another species.”
Meanwhile, work by St Andrews and Exeter universities with Whale and Dolphin Conservation focuses on a wild dolphin taken to a dolphinarium following her rescue from a polluted creek in Australia.
Named Billie, she was seen to perform tail walking tricks when released, despite never having been trained in the behaviour, which, while not seen in wild animals, is common in captive dolphin shows.
Researchers say Billie learned the act while watching shows during her time in captivity and then performed it out when set free in 1988.
By 2011, nine dolphins in the area had been observed tail walking, suggesting that the trick – which involves an animal rising vertically from the water and moving forward or backward across it – had become a cultural behaviour.
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