My Fish Is Smarter Than Your Fish

Oops...I Mean Mammal

In the past I've had the opportunity to see and interact with Bottlenose Dolphins in the wild while deep sea fishing and scuba diving.

I firmly believe in the popular estimates of their intelligence--often exceeding that of many politicians and media personalities found wandering around out there in the "real" world.

Take a look at this story indicating that individual Dolphins might have specific names, and actually say their names from a young age as a means of introduction and identifictaion.

The Sunday Times - Britain
May 07, 2006

DOLPHINS may be closer to humans than previously realised, with new research showing they communicate by whistling out their own “names”.

The evidence suggests dolphins share the human ability to recognise themselves and other members of the same species as individuals with separate identities. The research, on wild bottlenose dolphins, will lead to a reassessment of their intelligence and social complexity, raising moral questions over how they should be treated.

The research was carried out by Vincent Janik of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrews University, who has found bottlenose dolphins to be among the animal world’s quickest learners of new sounds.

He said: “Each animal develops an individually distinctive signature whistle in the first few months of its life, which appears to be used in individual recognition.”

The research has its origin in the 1960s when dolphin trainers first noticed that captive animals each had their own personal repertoire of whistles.

This prompted speculation that dolphins had their own language and might even have individual “names”. However, the theory was controversial among whale and dolphin researchers, and until now, there had been no means of testing it.

I wish that congress would pass a law giving Dolphins the right to vote rather than passing that responsibility to illegal aliens and many humans that I know.

But then again, I wouldn't like having to live in a giant concrete pool performing tricks for frozen chunks of Mackerel and Sardines, and that's probably what the Dolphins would do to all us Humans given the opportunity.

Remember...what comes around goes around...