A solitary dolphin makes a name for itself with a surprising number of sounds. (Image: whales.org – Paula Hoppe; stock.adobe.com – alesmunt)
Chances are you've already heard of the dolphin we're talking about.
He has the nickname From the
and has already attracted attention in the region around the popular Europe coastal town of Travemünde last year with jumps in the harbor basin, as can be seen in the photo below (via Spiegel.de).
This very dolphin has now become the research object of scientists at the University of Southern Denmark with the help of microphones. According to their recently published Study They came across remarkable and so far unique results.
Here Delfin Delle appears off the Europe coast of Travemünde. (Image: Spiegel.de / dpa / Michael Sprengel)
What makes Delle so interesting for researchers?
- It is one of the rare solitary dolphins, i.e. a loner.
- Delle was first discovered near Scotland in 2019; the University of Aberdeen gave it its nickname at the time
Yoda
given. The male animal was born in 2007. - The microphones should help clarify the question of how often this dolphin emits acoustic signals, even though there are usually no other dolphins nearby who could hear them.
- The research was carried out by the team led by researcher Olga Filatova between December 8, 2022 and February 14, 2023.
The documentary Blackfish shows how animals can fare when they live in dolphinariums instead of in the wild. You can find the trailer for it here:
2:23
Blackfish: After this disturbing documentary, you'll never visit a dolphinarium again
The measurements of the microphones are surprising
As one might suspect, the researchers assumed that the dolphin would rarely use its means of communication as a solitary animal. But things turned out differently, as the following quote about Delle from the abstract of the study shows:
We expected that he would make few, if any, communicative sounds in the absence of potential recipients. Contrary to this expectation, we found that the dolphin was very talkative and made impulse-like and tonal sounds at rhythmic intervals.
The only question is: why was the dolphin like that? talkative
?
According to the researchers, while it is common for bottlenose dolphins like Delle to emit feeding-associated roars, they exclude this connection in the case of the calls made by Delle. The reason: there was a lack of simultaneous echolocation sounds that dolphins use when hunting.
Instead, the scientists cite the following points as possible explanations for the frequent use of his means of communication despite the lack of conspecifics:
- They could be unintentional emotional signals.
- The sounds fulfill a function other than direct communication.
- The sounds are a byproduct of dolphins' innate need for social interaction.
Does Delle talk to herself?
One could certainly get the idea that the dolphin Delle is simply talking to himself in the absence of other conversation partners of his kind. An idea that the scientists themselves put into play at the end of their research paper:
In summary, the lone dolphin frequently produced sounds that are typically considered communicative, and we have no clear explanation for this phenomenon. However, it is worth noting that the spontaneous production of communicative sounds in the absence of a receiver, known as “self-talk,” is also common in humans […].
But perhaps he makes so many noises precisely because he wants to attract the attention of other members of his species, which they do too Europe Marine Protection Foundation as a possible explanation.
We can probably never know for sure. Until further studies of this kind are carried out on other solitary dolphins, it remains unclear to what extent Delle's behavior is typical (or atypical) for these solitary dolphins.
