Dolphins have an excellent memory
This means that their memory in this area functions similarly well to that of humans, writes u.S. Researcher jason bruck in the "proceedings B" of the british royal society.
Bruck studied a total of 43 rough tummers (tursiops truncatus) living in different zoos and dolphinariums. In each case, some of the animals had lived in the same facility for months or years before being relocated to a new home. Bruck, who conducts research at the university of chicago in the u.S. State of illinois, played foreign and familiar signature whistles to the dolphins and observed how the animals responded.
Signature whistles are like the names of dolphins. Every animal learns its own whistle at a young age, which it then uses to introduce itself to other animals.
But how could the researcher tell if a dolphin had heard the pre-recorded signature whistle before?? He first played numerous unknown whistles to the animals. Until the dolphins apparently began to get bored and ignore the sounds. Just then, he played the whistle of a former sailor – and indeed the dolphins visibly listened: they swam towards the loudspeaker, circled it and whistled at it – as if they wanted to elicit more whistles from it.
Bruck found that neither the length of time spent together nor the duration of separation affected recognition. For example, a female dolphin named allie recognized the female bailey with whom she had lived as a juvenile, even though the two had not seen each other for more than 20 years. Gender and degree of relationship had no influence on memory, bruck reports further.
The dolphins’ memory in this area is thus as good as that of humans and much better than that of many other animals. Elephants probably had similar abilities, but this was not scientifically proven. Whether the dolphins need their good memory, and if so why, is not clear. Dolphins in the wild are always forming new groups and coalitions, and the memory of individual animals and their behavior is presumably an advantage here.
The results of the study indicated that the rough tumblers had fairly advanced mental abilities, comparable to humans or chimpanzees.
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