06-16-2019, 10:14 PM
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/june...dship.html
When it comes to making friends, it appears dolphins are just like us and form close friendships with other dolphins that have a common interest. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B by an international team of researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Zurich and Western Australia, provides further insight into the social habits of these remarkable animals.
Shark Bay, a World Heritage area in Western Australia, is home to an iconic population of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, and the only place where dolphins have been observed using marine sponges as foraging tools. This learnt technique, passed down from generation to generation, helps certain dolphins, "spongers", find food in deeper water channels. While the tool-using technique is well-studied in female dolphins, this study looked specifically at male dolphins.
Male spongers spend more time associating with other male spongers than they do non-spongers, these bonds being based on similar foraging techniques and not relatedness or other factors.
My first thought was "Could just be a correlation - or maybe these dolphins are all spongers because they're all friends, rather than the other way around". However, it sounds like they've controlled for all the obvious correlations they can think of, and still found a trend.
It'll be interesting to see whether or not further research corroborates this.
When it comes to making friends, it appears dolphins are just like us and form close friendships with other dolphins that have a common interest. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B by an international team of researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Zurich and Western Australia, provides further insight into the social habits of these remarkable animals.
Shark Bay, a World Heritage area in Western Australia, is home to an iconic population of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, and the only place where dolphins have been observed using marine sponges as foraging tools. This learnt technique, passed down from generation to generation, helps certain dolphins, "spongers", find food in deeper water channels. While the tool-using technique is well-studied in female dolphins, this study looked specifically at male dolphins.
Male spongers spend more time associating with other male spongers than they do non-spongers, these bonds being based on similar foraging techniques and not relatedness or other factors.
My first thought was "Could just be a correlation - or maybe these dolphins are all spongers because they're all friends, rather than the other way around". However, it sounds like they've controlled for all the obvious correlations they can think of, and still found a trend.
It'll be interesting to see whether or not further research corroborates this.
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