Communication
Communication
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Communication is vital for smooth running social lives and high levels of cooperation. Dolphins, and other cetaceans have developed their own unique means of communication suited to their aquatic lives which are some of the richest languages known.
Clicks, grunts, whistles, squeals, squawks, calls, songs all of extraordinary variety provide them with extensive vocabularies that cover all situations. In addition to their vocal repertoires, whales and dolphins are masters of body language too.
Non-vocal communication
Non-vocal communication
Non-vocal communication includes behaviours that are also used to assert rank, including breaching, water slapping and jaw clapping. Breaching is probably the most commonly observed non-vocal signal. When it is a dolphin’s intention to communicate its presence, it will deliberately twist it's body to effectively 'belly-flop' when it leaps out of the water. This 'belly-flop' is load enough to be heard up to a kilometre away.
Vocal communication
Vocal communication
Despite using these sub-vocal signs to announce their presence to others, cetaceans also communicate with each other vocally. These sounds are quite different from those used to echolocate. Exactly how they are produced is a mystery as dolphins do not possess vocal cords. They do however possess a complex arrangement of air passages and these together with their muscular larynx are probably used to create the necessary vibrations that produce sound. Unlike land mammals’ dolphins cannot afford to 'waste' air by expelling it to produce sound, instead they recycle it, repeatedly passing the same air through their larynx. Variously described as whistles, moans, grunts and rumbles, vocal communication probably contains more information that non-vocal water slaps, but exactly how much is debatable.
Direct observation of dolphins suggest that they also use these vocalisations in a similar way to other mammals: as signs of recognition, alarm and threat. The dolphin 'whistles' are made up of many short pulses, approximately 300 per second. In one experiment up to 30 distinct calls of the bottlenose dolphin were recorded and then played back individually to assess the reaction. Many of the calls simply prompted a reflection of the same call back, but some resulted in the dolphins responding in a specific way such as by swimming in a highly agitated manner, producing echolocation sounds, or showing heightened curiosity about their immediate surroundings.
A feature of several species of dolphins is the ability for individuals to produce distinctive, melodically complex 'songs' that change from year to year, and that discrete populations possess their own unique dialect.
Given Names
Given Names
Some dolphin species also seem to use distinct names for one another. These are identifiable, individual whistles sometimes known as signature whistles. Dolphins use their names to identify and call one another. Infant dolphins learn their names (individual whistles) from their mothers and keep them for life. Dolphins greet one another at sea by exchanging their names and seem to remember the names of other dolphins for decades. No other creature, besides humans, is believed to use given names for each other.
External Links
External Links
The link below has more information on dolphins expressing emotion through sound (From BBC Earth)
Dolphin Expresses Emotion Through Sound
The part of a dolphins brain that processes sound is around 10 times bigger than that of a humans. Unlocking the hundreds of sounds that dolphins are capable of my hold the key to Dolphin intelligence.
Dolphin Expresses Emotion Through Sound (YouTube)
Scholarly links
Scholarly links
For more information on this topic please explore these scholarly articles noted below:
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