Captive orcas speak dolphin

news.sciencemag.org

Two years ago, scientists showed that dolphins imitate the sounds of whales. Now, it seems, whales have returned the favor. Researchers analyzed the vocal repertoires of 10 captive orcas (Orcinus orca), three of which lived with bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and the rest with their own kind.

I don't want to over-quote (it's quite a short article), they go on to say the ones' who lived with dolphins started to make dolphin like sounds. The ones' who live together don't do that.

This led me to find the research summary...
scitation.aip.org

Time-domain features of click trains were intermediate between those of whales held with conspecifics and dolphins. These differences provided evidence for contextual learning. One killer whale spontaneously learned to produce artificial chirps taught to dolphins; acoustic features fell within the range of inter-individual differences among the dolphins. This whale also produced whistles similar to a stereotyped whistle produced by one dolphin

Kind of interesting, neat that different species are trying to communicate.

And yes, if i learn that my cat comes when I make a certain noise it is communication even if it's simply learned behavior.




Unrelated pic of killer whale.

a reply to: Elton

This is interesting. Seems like if a Chinese man that lived with a Latino Spanish man in the same house eventually they would try to communicate. My only question is what other species would have the intellect to do this as well.

a reply to: MGaddafi

They taught a mountain gorilla sign language back in the '80's.
A few hundred words at least. It didn't just repeat. It communicated.

a reply to: the owlbear

Answer my question thank you friend. Ill have to look into that

a reply to: MGaddafi

The name was Koko, the gorilla, that is.
She had a pet kitten she loved and tried to teach sign language.

a reply to: Elton

Great link.
Some humans are arrogant to believe we are the only "intelligent" species.
What defines intelligence? Or for that matter, sentience? Or both?

I believe many other denizens of earth are self-aware and can speak at least to their own kind, develop tools, feel emotions not unlike our own. Biology and language barriers due to differing biology make it troublesome for interspecies communication.

I personally believe the giant squid Arcatuthus (sic) to be at least on par with humans since they have stayed hidden for so long and ordinary squid communicate through changing colors so they must be smart enough to give the "heads up, people coming" when divers bring their subs and cameras.

a reply to: the owlbear

I absolutely agree. I have seen some pretty amazing animal behavior over the years that leads me to believe many animals are both intelligent and empathetic.

Well, if I was forced to live with a chinese person in a Big room, the Chinese man better learn to speak English because I really do not want to learn a different language. The first thing he will learn to say is..Shut up already.

a reply to: rickymouse

Haha good point but just like the orcas being around some one different for a certain length of time one would eventually try and socialize to some some extent. Whales and orcas are very sociable animals just like people so there is a sort of common ground.

Actually... even if this is a very interesting discovery, which proves the intelligence of these animals as far less limited as we used to think it is, I'm gonna explain something....

Orca's or Killer whales are members of the Cetacean family tree which include Mammalian animal marine, inc. whales dolphins etc.
The Family Delphinidae: part of the Cetacean line, but different enough for them to have their own sub line of Cetacean called Delphinida which has developed different features then for example whales, and the main feature is that they are toothed whales. What makes them act and behave a lot different, as their diet differ dramatically resulting in an active hunter.
The advantage from having tooth is that you know have to work harder to catch your prey, as tactics, strategy and cooperating ( hunting in packs ) creates a demand for increasing intelligent behavior from an already intelligent animal.
en.wikipedia.org...

Since the Bottle nose dolphin and Orca/ Killer whale are in fact both Dolphins that both have similar lifestyles, hunting, communicating, socializing and masters of their world. With one difference that a solitary bottlenose is at risk of becoming shark food. A group will actually work together to attack or scare off the shark. With their couple of meters in size that's admirable.
A Killer whale is the largest of it's kind and their are no other animals alive today able to compete with the brute force and intelligence of an adult killer whale , let alone a group of them.

Excuse me for drifting but my point is this :

Both Killer whales and Bottle nose dolphins have a highly developed intelligence and both have more grey brain matter then people in comparison, but their brains are also bigger, much bigger in the Killer whale.
Meaning this... learning a language from another human could be as easy for us as it is for an Orca and a any other Dolphin or even Cetacean wild life.
On top of that these animals show the ability to learn and understand human commands, expressions and maybe even more. Which makes them at least one or 2 steps ahead of us.

Hell they might be way more intelligent, and spend their time on way more complex matter then we can ever imagine.
Our ability to create and manipulate the world around us demands massive amounts of energy etc limiting us from all sorts of stuff, while an Orca is free from those limiting use of brainpower and energy usage, what could possibly open doors towards stuff we only dream of, or beyond.

Not only limit we ourselves by continuous use of brain power and the urge to manipulate the world around you, we are also limited by boundaries that come along with it. Most disturbing for example is greed, faith, manipulation and jealousy, next to actual scientific boundaries that block doorways to us, where no block ever bothered an Orca like that, making it possible to create a world without limited imagination, which is the one and only source of human advancements, but without the limits of science and faith. For all we know quantum physics are as easy for an orca to understand then our ability to understand it at all. Yet in a very different way

But that's just speculation

a reply to: Sinter Klaas

Thanks for the (quite good) explanation.