Dolphin Memories Span At Least 20 Years

sciencehabit writes "A new study reveals that bottlenose dolphins can remember each other's signature contact whistles — calls that function as names — for more than 20 years, the longest social memory ever recorded for a nonhuman animal. 'The ability to remember individuals is thought to be extremely important to the "social brain,"' says Janet Mann, a marine mammal biologist at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the research. Yet, she notes, no one has succeeded in designing a test for this talent in the great apes — our closest kin — let alone in dolphins."

Comments

Re:If they had thumbs...

[girlintraining]

...we'd be in so much trouble. It seems like there's a never ending list of surprises from these creatures.

You think you're so special because you have thumbs and built cities and cars and rockets and all that. The dolphins, meanwhile, think they're special... because they didn't have to do any of that.