Slashdot Mirror
Killer Whales Caught On Tape Speaking Dolphin
sciencehabit writes Two years ago, scientists showed that dolphins imitate the sounds of whales. Now, it seems, whales have returned the favor. Researchers analyzed the vocal repertoires of 10 captive orcas, three of which lived with bottlenose dolphins and the rest with their own kind. Of the 1551 vocalizations these seven latter orcas made, more than 95% were the typical pulsed calls of killer whales. In contrast, the three orcas that had only dolphins as pals busily whistled and emitted dolphinlike click trains and terminal buzzes, the scientists report in the October issue of The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. The findings make orcas one of the few species of animals that, like humans, is capable of vocal learning (video)—a talent considered a key underpinning of language."
"Hey buddy. Hey pal. You wanna come swim in my tank? Come jump on over, my tasty friend. We have lots of fish to fill your delicious belly."
Hmm.. Language learning could as well be within-species. Sounds more interesting here that dolphins and orcas can communicate spontaneously given close quarters.
Aren't Orcas dolphins?
All the more reason to free these suckers...god damn.
I get it though, they're no longer suited to living in the wild, etc etc. Can't we help them out with some head-mounted lasers or something?
Are they thanking us for all the fish?.. I'm worried now...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Fascinating, but why are you submitting your third grade science homework to Slashdot?
TFS seems to imply some divide between dolphins and whales, where orcas fall into the latter. Orcas and dolphins share the same subfamily.
For comparison, humans and chimps share the same subfamily, and there are clear examples of similarities between us (assuming most of you are human) and chimps. Thus it's not exactly surprising to find similarities between orcas and dolphins.
Taped evidence is inadmissable without a warrant.
A talent shared by other species (parrots, for example).
I wondered if the errant pings from MH370 that various navies were chasing might be immitations of the actual FDR sonar pinger made by some sea creatures. Dolphins (or something) hear the real pinger and then figure out that if they imitate the noise, people in ships will come over to 'play'.
Have gnu, will travel.
Orca: What do you mean "So long, and thanks for all the fish"? What aren't you telling me?
You can see their lips move.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Cervezas. Dos cervezas. Perhaps why your wife is mocking you.
All megafauna is intelligent or it wouldn't have made it this long.
All megafauna have a combination of adaptive traits for their environment, some of which may be traits that we'd categorize under "intelligence". Intelligence isn't a scalar value. We might be able to measure its components by providing tasks that measure the presence and efficiency of specific capabilities of the brain and call the geometric distance from the 0-point "intelligence", but different animals will fall within different places in that multi-dimensional space. Some animals will have better scores than humans, in some dimensions. I'd posit that humans would have the greatest geometric distance from "0", though.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
What is with this new "humans are dumb" nonsense? Anything a cat can do a human can out-think and do better. Which is why any cat that is a physical threat to us or competes with us is endangered. They may fit their niche better than a human would but that does not make them more intelligent than a human.
Pickup lines by male Orcas.
"Hey, Baby, you've heard about Orcas, right? We're whales, Honey, and I do mean that in every way. Yeah. Once you've gone black and white, you never go back. And white."
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The humans are dumb nonsense comes from the fact that animals are smart enough to achieve equilibrium with their environment while humans pave a path of destruction anymore they go.
Why is it so many people see humans as not part of nature?
If we build a dam, we are damaging the ecology. If a family of beavers build a dam, it is all natural. If we grow a cow and slaughter it in a slaughterhouse, it is barbaric and unnatural. Yet when a lioness brings down a buffalo that is all fine and part of the circle of life. Why is a piece of plastic artificial, but a piece of wood carved by a beaver is not?
In my opinion humans are animals that change their environment around them to suit their needs. Just like a bird that makes a nest to care and protect its young. A city is much more comfortable for us than a forest. An airplane is a tool to get around just like a spider that builds a sail out of a web to use wind to get across a river.
Yes, we are VERY good at what we do. With our usurpassed intelligence and social hierarchies we have tames the most hostile of environments. All this "destruction" you accuse humanity of is just nature rearanging itself to another state.
The humans are dumb nonsense comes from the fact that animals are smart enough to achieve equilibrium with their environment while humans pave a path of destruction anymore they go.
Says anyone who doesn't have beavers on their property.
Animals do not have any innate instinct towards living in equilibrium with their environment. If they did, imported species wouldn't overrun their new homes (ask Australians how well cane toads and rabbits are finding a "natural balance"). All animals will do what is necessary to breed to the maximum their environment will allow, even if it is catastrophic to that environment. Humanity is unusual only in the sense of our extreme adaptability to differing climatic regions and the fact that - with the use of tools - were have no natural predators to keep our numbers in check.
If anything, humanity is the most environmentally-friendly of creatures, because we alone consider (albeit not often enough) the consequences of our actions upon the rest of the world and sometimes work against our own immediate interests for the betterment of the world at large.
Which is not to excuse our rapine habits, of course; we as a species are a danger to the current natural balance. But let's not kid ourselves; no other animal would be any better.