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A Dolphin By Any Other Name
SloppyElvis writes "CNN is reporting that scientists have proven that Dolphins can communicate with each other by name. From the article: 'researchers synthesized signature whistles with the caller's voice features removed and played them to dolphins through an underwater speaker' to which the mammals responded. This form of identification in language was previously only known to exist in the human world." Thankfully they still haven't evolved opposable thumbs.
Since it says "Dolphins" and not "dolphins" (or "porpoises", even) can we assume that this is in reference to the Miami Dolphins? Truly astounding if true...
Baby Dolphin goes downstairs and sits on her little seashell at the table. She looks into her little bowl. It is empty.
"Who's been eating my sardines?!!" she squeaks.
Daddy Dolphin arrives at the table and sits on his big seashell. He looks into his big bowl and it is also empty.
"Who's been eating my sardines?!!" he roars.
Mummy Dolphin puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells
"How many times do we have to go through this with you idiots? It was Mummy Dolphin who got up first, it was Mummy Dolphin who woke everyone in the house, it was Mummy Dolphin who made the coffee, it was Mummy Dolphin who unloaded the dishwasher from last night, and put everything away, it was Mummy Dolphin who went out in the cold early morning water to fetch the newspaper, it was Mummy Dolphin who set the damn table, it was Mummy Dolphin who put the friggin catfish out, cleaned the litter box and filled the catfish's water and food dish, and now that you've decided to drag your sorry dolphin-asses downstairs and grace Mummy Dolphin's kitchen with your grumpy presence, listen good, cause I'm only going to say this one more time...
I HAVEN'T MADE THE DAMN SARDINES YET !!"
1) They'd kill us all if they had thumbs
2) They love NASCAR
This
This form of identification in language was previously only known to exist in the human world ... except for the hundreds of thousands of parrot owners througout the world. My african greys call each other by name when asking for anything.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
it's an all-porpoise identifier.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
My parents own a pet store, and move a pair of African Grey Parrots between work and home every day, along with two dogs. The birds not only recognize their own names, but they appropriatly name the dogs when they encounter them. In addition, they can tell them to sit by name and even will give the dogs bits of food in exchange for treats - they appear to do this appropriatly when they want to either cause mischief or gain obedience from the dogs when the dogs are frightening them. The birds also use eachother's names appropriatly - and at the pet store seem to know the difference between these specific dogs and the other similar dogs that they encounter.
Intelligence and symbol identification/use definitely seems to me to be a general phenomenon larger than mammalian life.
It would be interesting to repeat similar experiments with intelligent species of wild birds to see if they generate unique sound identification that they may use to identify third-"persons" non-visually in some way. Most likely birds would use such ability to immitate eachother for social manipulation - but the conclusions of the use of such symbolic proto-language would still be meaningful.
Ryan Fenton