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A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae, Platanistidae, Iniidae, Pontoporiidae, and possibly extinct Lipotidae. There are 40 extant species named as dolphins.
Bottlenose dolphins are aquatic mammals in the genus Tursiops. They are common, cosmopolitan members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Molecular studies show the genus definitively contains three species: the common bottlenose dolphin, the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, and Tamanend's bottlenose dolphin. Others, like the Burrunan dolphin, may be alternately considered their own species or be subspecies of T. aduncus. Bottlenose dolphins inhabit warm and temperate seas worldwide, being found everywhere except for the Arctic and Antarctic Circle regions. Their name derives from the Latin tursio (dolphin) and truncatus for their characteristic truncated teeth.
Oceanic dolphins or Delphinidae are a widely distributed family of dolphins that live in the sea. Close to forty extant species are recognised. They include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the Globicephalinae. Delphinidae is a family within the superfamily Delphinoidea, which also includes the porpoises (Phocoenidae) and the Monodontidae. River dolphins are relatives of the Delphinoidea.
The toothed whales are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales possessing teeth, such as the beaked whales and sperm whales. 73 species of toothed whales are described. They are one of two living groups of cetaceans, the other being the baleen whales (Mysticeti), which have baleen instead of teeth. The two groups are thought to have diverged around 34 million years ago (mya).
Cetacean intelligence is the overall intelligence and derived cognitive ability of aquatic mammals belonging in the infraorder Cetacea (cetaceans), including baleen whales, porpoises, and dolphins.
The Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin is a species of bottlenose dolphin. This dolphin grows to 2.6 m (8.5 ft) long, and weighs up to 230 kg (510 lb). It lives in the waters around India, northern Australia, South China, the Red Sea, and the eastern coast of Africa. Its back is dark grey and its belly is lighter grey or nearly white with grey spots.
The common bottlenose dolphin or Atlantic bottlenose dolphin is a wide-ranging marine mammal of the family Delphinidae. In the order Cetacea, the common bottlenose is most similar to whales, porpoises, and other dolphins, and they are found in the waters around the globe. The common bottlenose dolphin is a very familiar dolphin due to the wide exposure it gets in captivity in marine parks and dolphinariums, and in movies and television programs. Spending their entire life in water, the common bottlenose inhabits temperate and tropical oceans throughout the world, absent only from polar waters. While formerly known simply as the bottlenose dolphin, this term is now applied to the genus Tursiops as a whole. As considerable genetic variation has been described within this species, even between neighboring populations, many experts think additional species may be recognized.
Cetacean surfacing behaviour is a grouping of movement types that cetaceans make at the water's surface in addition to breathing. Cetaceans have developed and use surface behaviours for many functions such as display, feeding and communication. All regularly observed members of the order Cetacea, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, show a range of surfacing behaviours.
The evolution of cetaceans is thought to have begun in the Indian subcontinent from even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla) 50 million years ago (mya) and to have proceeded over a period of at least 15 million years. Cetaceans are fully aquatic marine mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla and branched off from other artiodactyls around 50 mya. Cetaceans are thought to have evolved during the Eocene, the second epoch of the present-extending Cenozoic Era. Molecular and morphological analyses suggest Cetacea share a relatively recent closest common ancestor with hippopotami and that they are sister groups. Being mammals, they surface to breathe air; they have 5 finger bones (even-toed) in their fins; they nurse their young; and, despite their fully aquatic life style, they retain many skeletal features from their terrestrial ancestors. Research conducted in the late 1970s in Pakistan revealed several stages in the transition of cetaceans from land to sea.
Animal culture can be defined as the ability of non-human animals to learn and transmit behaviors through processes of social or cultural learning. Culture is increasingly seen as a process, involving the social transmittance of behavior among peers and between generations. It can involve the transmission of novel behaviors or regional variations that are independent of genetic or ecological factors.
Tool use by non-humans is a phenomenon in which a non-human animal uses any kind of tool in order to achieve a goal such as acquiring food and water, grooming, combat, defence, communication, recreation or construction. Originally thought to be a skill possessed only by humans, some tool use requires a sophisticated level of cognition. There is considerable discussion about the definition of what constitutes a tool and therefore which behaviours can be considered true examples of tool use. A wide range of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, cephalopods, and insects, are considered to use tools.
In biology, any group of fish that stay together for social reasons are shoaling, and if the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are schooling. In common usage, the terms are sometimes used rather loosely. About one quarter of fish species shoal all their lives, and about one half shoal for part of their lives.
The Burrunan dolphin is a proposed species of bottlenose dolphin found in parts of Victoria, Australia first described in 2011. Its exact taxonomy is debated: numerous studies support it as being a separate species within the genus Tursiops and occupying a basal position within the genus, with limited phylogenetic studies using different methodologies indicate that it is a subspecies of the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin. The Burrunan dolphin is not currently recognized as a species by the Society for Marine Mammalogy or American Society of Mammalogists, which cites problematic methodology in the original study proposing species status and recommends further research.
Neuropolitics is a science which investigates the interplay between the brain and politics. It combines work from a variety of scientific fields which includes neuroscience, political science, psychology, behavioral genetics, primatology, and ethology. Often, neuropolitics research borrow methods from cognitive neuroscience to investigate classic questions from political science such as how people make political decisions, form political / ideological attitudes, evaluate political candidates, and interact in political coalitions. However, another line of research considers the role that evolving political competition has had on the development of the brain in humans and other species. The research in neuropolitics often intersects with work in genopolitics, political psychology, political physiology, sociobiology, neuroeconomics, and neurolaw.
A signature whistle is a learned, individually distinctive whistle type in a bottlenose dolphin's acoustic repertoire that gives the identity of the whistle owner. The whistles are identified and studied in the wild or in captivity by researchers using hydrophones. Vocal learning strongly influences the development of signature whistles, which can remain stable for up to at least 12 years. More often than not, calves develop signature whistles by the sounds they hear while making sure that they differ from close associates. However, male calves tend to learn signature whistles that resemble their mother's. They are believed to be most frequently used in communication of captive bottlenose dolphins, along with having specialized functions and properties. Researchers define it as a whistle with a unique frequency curve that dominates in the repertoire of a dolphin. Each dolphin has a distinct signature whistle that other members of its social group use to individually identify the whistler. They are typically used for localisation purposes, however they also provide dolphins with behavioural context. Signature whistles also play an important role in group cohesion and social interaction.
Kate Robb is an Australian marine mammalogist who, along with colleagues, declared in 2011 a new species of the genus Tursiops, and formally named it the Burrunan dolphin, Tursiops australis. She is the Founding Director and Head of Research at the Marine Mammal Foundation in Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria.
Social learning refers to learning that is facilitated by observation of, or interaction with, another animal or its products. Social learning has been observed in a variety of animal taxa, such as insects, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals.
Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) is a statistical tool to detect and quantify social transmission of information or a behaviour in social networks. NBDA assumes that social transmission of a behavior follows the social network of associations or interactions among individuals, since individuals who spend a lot of time together, or who interact more have more opportunity to learn from each other. Therefore, NBDA infers social transmission if the spread of a novel behavior follows the social network of a population. NBDA thus allows the study of social learning to be linked to animal behavior research that uses social network analysis. NBDA was introduced by Franz & Nunn and further developed by Hoppitt, Boogert, & Laland.
Cultural hitchhiking is a hypothesized gene-culture coevolutionary process through which cultural selection, sexual selection based on cultural preference, limits the diversity at genetically neutral loci being transmitted in parallel to selective cultural traits. The process is thought to account for exceptionally low diversity in neutral loci such as control regions of the mitochondrial genome unaccounted for by any other selective forces. Simply put, selection for certain learned social and cultural behaviors can manifest in specific shaping of a population’s genetic makeup. While the notion that culture plays a significant role in shaping community genetics is widely accepted in the context of human populations it had not been considered or documented in non-human organisms until the late 1990s. The term was coined by the cetologist Hal Whitehead who studies the cultures and population genetics of matrilineal whale communities.
Rochelle Lee Constantine is a New Zealand marine biologist, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland. Constantine specialises in marine mammal conservation.
References
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- ↑ Krützen, Michael; Kreicker, Sina; MacLeod, Colin D.; Learmonth, Jennifer; Kopps, Anna M.; Walsham, Pamela; Allen, Simon J. (2014-06-07). "Cultural transmission of tool use by Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops sp.) provides access to a novel foraging niche". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 281 (1784): 20140374. doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.0374. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 4043097 . PMID 24759862.
- 1 2 Wu, Katherine J. (2020-06-25). "Dolphins Have an Eating Trick. How They Learn It Is More Surprising". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-06-26.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wild, Sonja; Hoppitt, William J.E.; Allen, Simon J.; Krützen, Michael (August 2020). "Integrating Genetic, Environmental, and Social Networks to Reveal Transmission Pathways of a Dolphin Foraging Innovation". Current Biology. 30 (15): 3024–3030.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.069 . ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 32589911. S2CID 220057226.
- 1 2 Mann, Janet; Sargeant, Brooke (2003-07-03), "Like mother, like calf: the ontogeny of foraging traditions in wild Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins (Tursiopssp.)", The Biology of Traditions, Cambridge University Press, pp. 236–266, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511584022.010, ISBN 9780521815970 , retrieved 2021-10-25
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- ↑ Hobaiter, Catherine; Poisot, Timothée; Zuberbühler, Klaus; Hoppitt, William; Gruber, Thibaud (2014-09-30). de Waal, Frans B. M. (ed.). "Social Network Analysis Shows Direct Evidence for Social Transmission of Tool Use in Wild Chimpanzees". PLOS Biology. 12 (9): e1001960. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001960 . ISSN 1545-7885. PMC 4181963 . PMID 25268798.
- ↑ Cornell, Heather N.; Marzluff, John M.; Pecoraro, Shannon (2012-02-07). "Social learning spreads knowledge about dangerous humans among American crows". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279 (1728): 499–508. doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.0957. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 3234554 . PMID 21715408.
- 1 2 3 Van Schaik, Carel P. (2003-07-03), "Local traditions in orangutans and chimpanzees: social learning and social tolerance", The Biology of Traditions, Cambridge University Press, pp. 297–328, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511584022.012, ISBN 9780521815970 , retrieved 2021-10-25