Scientists have recorded two dolphins having a conversation with each other for the first time. According to the new study, the clicks, and whistles could be a hidden series of sentences and words that for other animals could signify messages that could be similar to the human communication.
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A team of researchers, led by Vyacheslav Ryabov, utilized a two-channel audio system to record a pair of captive Black Sea bottlenose dolphins talking to one another.
Australian research conducted in 2007 found that dolphins use almost 200 different whistle sounds while communicating, with groups of sounds linked to specific activities such as feeding, resting, socializing, and traveling.
The recordings “showed that the dolphins took turns in producing pulse packs and did not interrupt each other”, said the researchers, suggesting that the marine mammals could be listening to the entire sentence before making responses of their own. But when it does get deciphered, it would be the first time that humans will be privy to the thoughts and conversations of a different species.
He attached electrodes to the brains of living dolphins to stimulate neurons and observed that a dolphin that was about to be brutally killed made loud noises, which he interpreted as attempts to communicate with its tormenters.
“We can assume that each pulse represents a phoneme or a word of the dolphin’s spoken language”.
Largely accepted as third only to humans and chimpanzees in terms of intelligence, bottlenose dolphins may be closer to the top of the list than previously imagined.
Researchers who undertook the investigation are now excited to start studying how we could understand what they are saying and try to communicate with them.
“Humans must take the first step to establish relationships with the first intelligent inhabitants of the planet Earth by creating devices capable of overcoming the barriers that stand in the way of … communications between dolphins and people”, he said.
Speech might not be the only thing humans and dolphins have in common. It was found that the two would wait for each other to finish what they had to say before replying back.
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As a result, researchers say the aquatic duo could form sentences of up to five “words”, though scientists had no idea what they were going on about. “It wouldn’t make much sense for animals (in a small area) to make sounds over each other because they wouldn’t get much (sonar) information”, he said.
