Three marine biologists at the University of St Andrews recently conducted a study on how dolphins use auditory and gustatory (taste) signals to distinguish between companions and strangers. Using dolphins at Dolphin Quest resorts in Hawaii and Bermuda—where tourists can pay to swim alongside marine life—the team verified that dolphins could tell the difference between regular water and water samples with urine. They then presented the resident dolphins with urine samples from other dolphins (both strangers and other residents) and found that the creatures paid more attention to samples from dolphins they knew, versus ones they’d never met.
(Photo: J. Bruck et. al/Science Advances)
The next step was to combine the urine samples with playbacks of “signature whistles” the dolphins routinely used to communicate with each other. The dolphins spent a longer time “investigating” the presentation area when the urine sample and whistle came from the same companion dolphin than when they mismatched (i.e. the urine sample was from a stranger while the whistle was from a companion, or vice versa).
“This demonstrates that dolphins recognize other individuals by gustation alone,” reads the paper, which was published last week in the journal Science Advances. For the researchers, it’s a potential confirmation that animals aside from humans can use concept labels to form predictions and “solve” mental simulations.
The study aligns with previous research that tells us dolphins make up unique whistles that they use to call one another, almost like individual names. And they aren’t the only animals that do this: similar research has revealed parrots likewise come up with and use “names” for offspring and companions. Dolphins just take it a step further by distinguishing friends from strangers via, well, their pee.
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