14 DAY TRIAL // New studies on whales' behavior have come to a rather surprising conclusion – these marine animals may be as intelligent as apes are, or maybe even more. Anthropologists believe that the whales developed intelligence millions of years before the last ancestor of primates and humans did. For this reason, some argue that the animals' status should be raised from “mindless beasts” to “intelligent creatures.” The supporters give the example of great apes, for which the idea of personality has moved from “preposterous,” when it first appeared, to possible, at this time.
The primates undoubtedly have self-awareness, feelings, as well as cognition, being able to resolve some pretty complex puzzles. Recent investigations have proven that some of them are even compassionate, and help others of their species (even though they are not related), without expecting anything back. This is more than we can say about some humans, who wouldn't help others if their lives depended on it. The new studies seem to prove that whales may be even more fit to be called “persons” than apes, despite the fact that their body shapes do not remind us of, well, us.
“If an alien came down anytime prior to about 1.5 million years ago to communicate with the ‘brainiest’ animals on Earth, they would have tripped over our own ancestors and headed straight for the oceans to converse with the dolphins,” Yerkes National Primate Research Center Evolutionary Neurobiologist Lori Marino said, quoted by Wired.
Under these circumstances, the scientist added, the prospect that 40,000 whales had been killed from 1985 to 2009 alone was all the more daunting. Additionally, these finds place even more question marks on the decisions of countries such as Japan, which stubbornly refuse to stop their barbaric whaling practices, despite international agreements.
Bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, sperm whales and humpback whales are the most studied types of whales in the world, and the researchers spending time with them say that they show remarkable distinction between individuals, as far as their songs and social behavior go. Distinctions appear even between individuals of the same species, which is more than we can say about, for example, zebras.
“It’s only due to our lack of knowledge that humans remain this exclusive species. We’re getting a lot of long-term studies in cetaceans, hitting multiple generations, and we’re finally able to get at these questions,” Dalhousie University Marine Biologist Shane Gero explained. “Based on what we know, I’d guess that cetacean culture is intermediate between humans and chimpanzees. Not in material culture, but in most other respects,” another Dalhousie University Biologist, Hal Whitehead, who has been involved with studying the animals for 32 years, added.