Researchers find bottlenose dolphins can recognize mates they haven't seen in 20 years

Aug 7, 2013 20:41 GMT  ·  By

Recent investigations have revealed that, when compared to other non-human species, bottlenose dolphins have the best memory in the animal kingdom.

Writing in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, scientists argue that, although chimpanzees and elephants have been documented to have excellent memories, dolphins are way more gifted at remembering events in the distant past.

Thus, experiments have shown that these marine mammals experience virtually no difficulties when it comes to recognizing the whistles of mates from which they have been separated for over 20 years.

As explained on the official website for the University of Chicago, these experiments were carried out on bottlenose dolphins living in captivity at six different facilities that were part of a breeding consortium.

Every once in a while, these facilities would rotate dolphins, their goal being to ensure that the breeding program was going according to plan.

Apparently, the dolphins eventually got to know each other so well that they could identify each other based on whistles.

What's more, they responded to a familiar whistle regardless of how much time had passed since they had last heard it.

“Through a playback study conducted within a multi-institution dolphin breeding consortium (where animals are moved between different facilities), recognition of unfamiliar versus familiar signature whistles of former tank mates was assessed.

“This research shows that dolphins have the potential for lifelong memory for each other regardless of relatedness, sex or duration of association,” the researchers write in their paper.

Scientists are still unable to say how and why bottlenose dolphins have evolved to have such impressive memories.

“These results, paired with evidence from elephants and humans, provide suggestive evidence that sociality and cognition could be related, as a good memory is necessary in a fluid social system,” they speculate.

Hopefully, further research will shed more light on the matter.