Dolphins Are Excellent Diplomats

In a recent study conducted by an international science team, it was revealed that bottlenose dolphins exhibit very complex communications patterns that are still a mystery to researchers. According to the new data, it would appear that the repertoire that the creatures use is highly complex, and also filled with nuances that can make all the difference in the world in their relationships. The investigation was conducted on the species Tursiops truncatus, which is the common bottlenose dolphin, the researchers say. The research was published in the book Dolphins: Anatomy, Behaviour and Threats, which was made available by the publishing house Nova Science Publishers, AlphaGalileo reports.

“Burst-pulsed sounds are used in the life of bottlenose dolphins to socialize and maintain their position in the social hierarchy in order to prevent physical conflict, and this also represents a significant energy saving,” tells SINC the lead author of the study, Bruno Díaz. The expert is also a research investigator at the Sardinia, Italy-based Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute (BDRI). He adds that these noises are basically the mirror image of the creatures' behaviors, and that they play a fundamental role in the social lives of the animals.

The new work also reveals that the whistle sounds, once thought to be the bottlenose dolphin's main mean of communication, are really not the most important tool in their repertoire. What makes the study stand out from the crowd is the fact that it represents the most advanced and complex collection of dolphin whistles and pulse sounds, alongside their translation. In order to carry out this study, the team has been applying bioacoustics methods to water off Sardinia since 2005, carefully cataloging communication patterns and aftermaths.

Diaz says that the pulsing noises can be construed as diplomatic tools in the creatures' language. They are oftentimes used “to avoid physical aggression in situations of high excitement, such as when they are competing for the same piece of food, for example,” the scientist argues. “The surprising thing about these sounds is that they have a high level of uni-directionality, unlike human sounds. One dolphin can send a sound to another that it sees as a competitor, and this one clearly knows it is being addressed,” Diaz concludes.