Friday, May 12, 2006

We Talked about Whales....now let's discuss Dolphins


An article I just read made me think again about how diverse nature really is in this world.
Some have surmised (and they may just be right) that certain animals MAY be more intelligent than the current "king" of the animal kingdom-humans- and that just possibly some of these creatures know a lot more about a lot of things then we humans do.

For example, it has been written (dont ask me where) that just possibly, Dolphins may have contact with extraterretrials from other parts of our universe. How would we know if we can not understand how they communicate?

But it seems we may be coming a little closer to understanding our water going friends.
Read the article below which I have posted courtesy of "Unknown Country", a website that is run by Whitley Strieber...who I have blogged about in the past.

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Dolphins Know Their Own Names
08-May-2006

Intelligent animals, like dogs and cats, recognize their names. A parrot will generally tell you his name if you ask him. But dolphins do even more—they give THEMSELVES names, then they send that name out through the depths of the ocean in order to tell other dolphins "hello."

A dolphin's name may sound like a series of whistles to us, but it's recognizable by other dolphins. Like some human languages (such as Chinese), understanding what is being said has to do with the way the words are pronounced—or in this case, in the frequencies of the whistles.

Dolphins are also one of the few animals that can recognize their name when it is said by someone else. Scientists used computers to "copy" dolphin names and found that the animals recognized them, even though individual voice references had been removed.

Whales sing to one another and elephants communicate by stomping their feet. Dolphins "talk" constantly, but while scientists always assumed some of these whistles identified sources of food, they didn't know what most of them were, until they realized they were keeping in touch with other dolphins by identifying themselves.

In LiveScience.com, Bjorn Carey quotes dolphin researcher Vincent Janik as saying, "Their repertoire of calls probably numbers in the hundreds…for most of them we [still] have no idea what they're for."

Since whales and dolphins live in the ocean, yet breathe air, scientists think that their ancestors tried out life on land, then decided it was better to return to the water, in a kind of reverse evolution.
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Flipper, flipper...King of the ocean!!!
A good day to all.

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