Amazing abilities of dolphins. Why do dolphins have such a large brain? Why do dolphins have a big brain

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Ekaterina Sivkova

Look At Me deconstructs a popular misconception every week and tries to figure out why it is so attractive to most of the people who defend it, and, in the end, why it is not true. In the new issue - that dolphins have a reputation as the most intelligent mammals is completely unfounded.

Statement:

Dolphins are the most intelligent mammals on the planet after humans. The dolphin's brain is by no means inferior to the human brain in terms of structural complexity: it even has more convolutions and nerve endings.

The attention of scientists around the world to the extraordinary intelligence of dolphins was attracted primarily by the size of their brain. The brain of an adult weighs about 1,700 grams, while the average human brain weighs 1,400 grams. In 1961, psychoanalyst and neuroscientist John C. Lilly, in his book Man and Dolphin: Adventures of a New Scientific Frontier, stated that dolphins have their own language with 60 basic signals and 5 levels of their combination, and in 10–20 years a person will be able to master this language and establish communication. In addition, dolphins stand out from the background of other intelligent animals in the presence of self-awareness (they are able to recognize themselves in the mirror) and emotional empathy (willingness to help other individuals). In India, for example, dolphins are officially recognized as individuals, and dolphinariums are banned throughout the country because they violate the dolphins' right to freedom.

Chris Parsons

zoologist

“There is no doubt that certain dolphins have the ability to comprehend sign language and symbolic signs, as well as to recognize linguistic constructions (mostly written language) if they are accompanied by an action or display of an object. They are able to perceive complex linguistic constructs such as syntax, analyze the behavior of others, "cheat" for their own benefit, and recognize their reflection in a mirror - which some toddlers are not capable of. In fact, their level of intelligence and awareness is at the level of a preschool child.”

Why is it not:

The size of a dolphin's brain has nothing to do with its intelligence: Dolphins need big brains to keep warm and remember complex coastlines.

Justin Gregg, author Are Dolphins Really Smart? The mammal behind the myth, is convinced that the language of dolphins is extremely limited and therefore does not prove that they are intellectually gifted. No one denies that dolphins have a complex signaling system that ensures the transfer of information between individuals, but it can only be called a language conditionally. And the emotional sympathy of dolphins is extremely exaggerated: they are able to attack a person and kill cubs of other species (for example, porpoises). According to Jay Mortan, an expert in animal acoustic communication, dolphins need large brains for nothing more than keeping their heads warm and navigating.

website- For quite a long time, experts have studied the language of dolphins and have received truly amazing results. As you know, sound signals occur in the nasal canal of dolphins at the moment air passes through it.

It was possible to establish that animals use sixty basic signals and five levels of their combination. Dolphins are able to create a "dictionary" of 1012 words! It is unlikely that dolphins use so many "words", but the volume of their active "dictionary" is impressive - about 14 thousand signals. For comparison: the same number of words is the average human vocabulary. And in everyday life, people manage 800-1000 words.

Dolphin communication is expressed in sound impulses and ultrasound. Dolphins make a wide variety of sounds: whistling, chirping, buzzing, squeaking, squealing, smacking, clicking, grinding, clapping, roaring, screaming, creaking, etc. The most expressive is the whistle, the variety of species of which includes several dozen. Each of them means a certain phrase (alarm, pain, call, greeting, warning, etc.) American scientists came to the conclusion that each dolphin in the flock has its own name, and the individual responds to it when relatives turn to the dolphin. No other animal has been found to have this ability.

Dolphin Intelligence

The dolphin brain is similar in weight to the human brain. Size doesn't matter in this case. Swiss scientists who conducted research on the abilities of animals found that in terms of intelligence, dolphins rank second after humans. Elephants were third, and monkeys took only fourth place. Not inferior in weight to the brain of an adult, the brain of a dolphin, at the same time, has a more complex structure of cerebral convolutions.

Many scientists these days conduct various experiments with dolphins and come to unexpected conclusions.

In particular, the theory that dolphins, unlike other representatives of the animal world, use "their own language" - not only for communication at the level of survival instinct, but also for the accumulation and assimilation of significant amounts of information. The question is why they need it - if they do not have "intelligent life" in the human understanding. A lot of research is being done in this direction.

An important aspect is that dolphins “see” with their ears. By emitting ultrasound, they calculate the object, thus obtaining some kind of visual image. The hearing of these mammals is hundreds of times sharper than that of a human. He is able to hear the sounds of fellows for hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilometers.

Their dolphin ear sensitivity level is located in the range of 10 Hz - 196 kHz. Perhaps the low-frequency limit is even lower. No living creature on Earth has such a wide frequency range.

With the so-called acoustic sounding of space, dolphins generate about 20-40 signals per second (up to 500 in extreme situations). That is, every second there is information processing comparable to the power of the most complex computers developed by man (Boris. F. Sergeev “Live ocean locators”).

It is assumed that from this kaleidoscope of information, the surrounding space and all objects in it are reproduced, which, in terms of their information content, is not comparable with our usual visual perception.

It is worth considering that a person receives 90 percent of information through the processing of a visual signal. So dolphins get it due to auditory and echolocation. Moreover, at a level at which a person cannot even create technical devices yet.

The "language" of dolphins

The speech of dolphins - all sorts of “unreasonable” sounds in the human eye, is already now, again on the basis of scientific experiments, considered by the level of complexity like any human language.

Russian scientists Markov and Ostrovskaya, studying the speech of dolphins, came to the conclusion that it surpasses the level of human complexity in terms of complexity.

Modern languages ​​have the following structure: sound, syllable and word. of which speech is made. When analyzing the sounds made by dolphins, 6 levels of complexity were identified, which has a structure similar to ancient, forgotten languages. Such languages ​​are based on something like linguistic hieroglyphs. When behind one sound designation (sound, syllable) - in such languages, the equivalent of a semantic phrase in our understanding is laid down. In the case of dolphins, this is a definite whistle.

In the speech of dolphins, mathematical patterns were also found that are characteristic of written texts according to the hierarchy of information arrangement: phrase, paragraph, paragraph, chapter.

Learnability

What are the intellectual abilities of dolphins? First of all, it is worth noting the fast learning of marine life. Dolphins sometimes learn to follow commands even faster than dogs. It is enough for a dolphin to show the trick 2-3 times, and he will easily repeat it. In addition, dolphins also show creative abilities. So, the animal is not only able to complete the task of the trainer, but also to do some more tricks in the process. Surprisingly, this property of the dolphin brain: it never sleeps. The right and left hemispheres of the brain rest alternately. After all, a dolphin must always be on the alert: avoid predators and periodically rise to the surface for breathing.

Dolphins have truly amazing abilities. The famous American neuroscientist John Lilly, one of the pioneers who studied brain physiology at the University of Pennsylvania, called dolphins a "parallel civilization."

John Lill came close to establishing vocal contact with these animals. Studying the tape recordings that recorded all the conversations and sounds in the dolphinarium, the researcher drew attention to the explosive and pulsating series of signals. It was like laughing! Moreover, in the tape recordings made in the absence of people, some words that belonged to the operators and uttered by them during the working day slipped in a very compressed form! However, the process of teaching dolphins the human language did not go further. Thinking about the reasons for this, Lilly came up with a stunning insight: they got bored with people!

Dolphin therapy

It is actively used in modern medicine, the following facts are confirmed by official studies.

The fact that the patient is in an altered state of consciousness during the session is confirmed by electroencephalographic data (measurements are usually taken before the session and immediately after it). The rhythms of the human brain slow down significantly, the dominant EEG frequency decreases, and the electrical activity of both hemispheres of the brain is synchronized. This state is typical for meditation, autogenic immersion, hypnotic trance, holotropic breathing. In addition, psychoimmunological studies have shown that during sessions of dolphin therapy, the production of endorphins increases significantly. Endorphins help to harmonize the nervous system and set it up for an active and positive worldview.

Dolphins are smarter than humans- a phrase that ridicules the mental abilities of a person by comparing his intelligence with the intelligence of dolphins. Such memes usually talk about stupid actions and senseless disputes that are inherent in a person. And the dolphin, which does not commit such acts, is opposed to all this.

Origin

It is believed that dolphins are the most intelligent mammals on the planet after humans. However, the meme is most likely based on the text from chapter 23 of the humorous book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979).

On planet Earth, it was generally accepted that the intelligence of a person is higher than the intelligence of a dolphin, on the simple basis that man has created so many useful things - the wheel, New York, wars, etc. - while the dolphins just chilled themselves in the water. But dolphins, on the contrary, have always considered themselves much smarter than humans - for the same reason. Douglas Adams

Meme "Dolphins are smarter than people" can exist both in the form of plain text and in the form of a picture. The most well-established macro contains an image of a hypothetical scientist who concludes: “This is how dolphins once again proved that they are one of the smartest creatures on Earth.”

Meaning

The dolphin meme makes fun of hobbies, stupid actions, and the generally familiar image of people. This is expressed in the fact that the dolphin answers the next senseless dispute “I don’t care”, thereby confirming its intelligence.

Some memes, on the same principle, make fun of things and phenomena familiar to people. Have you ever seen a dolphin paying tuition for 5 years to work outside of their profession? No. Because a dolphin is smarter than a human.

Gallery

Any person who has ever met dolphins will forever remember his communication with these unique and amazing animals. Affectionate, playful and quick-witted, they do not resemble dangerous predators, but they really are. But their love for people is so great that they never show us their skills as one of the most powerful inhabitants of the deep sea.

Man has been studying the habits and intelligence of dolphins for a very long time, but, most likely, the dolphin managed to study the man much better. After all, it is much older than modern Homo Sapiens - its age is more than 70 million years. And by the way, the origin of dolphins, which explains the highly developed mental abilities of this species, is fanned with legends no less than the appearance of man on earth.

Channeling with Dolphins We give energy for health and development

Heirs of Atlantis

The fact that once dolphins were inhabitants of the land has been known to scientists for a long time. They left the water, but, over time, for some unknown reason, returned to it again. To explain exactly when and how this happened, science is not yet able to do. Although, perhaps, when a person finds a common language with these amazing creatures of nature, they themselves will tell us their story, because their collective intelligence and the ability to transfer knowledge from one individual to another suggests that dolphins may have their own history.

Recently conducted by Australian scientists, studies that compared the DNA of humans and dolphins make it possible to assert that they are our closest relatives. Perhaps they are just a parallel branch of evolution that split off from the main species about a quarter of a million years ago.

And on the basis of these studies, the old legend was continued - that dolphins are the descendants of the people who inhabited Atlantis. When this highly developed civilization went to the bottom of the ocean, who knows what happened to its inhabitants? Maybe they turned into inhabitants of the deep sea, forever preserving the memory of a past life and love for a person, as for their own heir?

And even if this is nothing more than a beautiful legend, the similarity of the brain, intelligence and basic DNA structures does not allow us to completely abandon it - after all, we have something in common, so there must be a logical explanation for this fact.

BBC. Secrets of the sea depths. Magic world of dolphins

Dolphins: relatives or progenitors of mankind?

Ichthyologists, who have devoted their lives to studying the phenomenon of dolphins, claim that they are second in terms of intelligence development after humans. Our "Darwinian" ancestors, the great apes, by the way, occupy only the fourth step in this hierarchy. The weight of the brain of an adult dolphin averages 1.5-1.7 kilograms, which exceeds the size of the human brain by an order of magnitude. At the same time, their body-to-brain ratio is much higher than that of the same chimpanzees, and high organization within the team and a complex chain of relationships allows us to speak of the presence of a special “dolphin civilization”.

And tests for the level of mental development showed amazing results - dolphins scored only 19 points less than the representatives of the human race. And this despite the fact that the tests were developed by people and for people. That is, dolphins are characterized by excellent analytical abilities, coupled with an excellent understanding of human thinking.

Largely due to this, neurophysiologist John Lilly, well-known in scientific circles, who worked with dolphins for a long period, argued that they would be the first representatives of the terrestrial animal world who would establish conscious contact with human civilization. Communication will be facilitated by the fact that dolphins have their own highly developed language, excellent memory and cognitive abilities, which allow them to accumulate and transmit knowledge in “oral” form from generation to generation. Scientists suggest that if they had limbs adapted for writing, dolphins would easily master writing, their mind is so similar to the human one.

All this data unwittingly gives rise to assumptions that dolphins are not just a side branch of human development. It is quite possible that it was they, and not monkeys at all, who became the progenitors of modern people, first leaving the water on land to give rise to a new life, and then again going to the seabed to enable a person to go his own way of development.

This assumption is also supported by the most interesting facts that tell how dolphins in the wild save a person. Many sailors who have been shipwrecked or simply had the misfortune to collide with sharks tell how dolphins drove away hungry sharks from them for hours, preventing them from approaching a person, and helped them swim to the saving shore. Such an attitude is typical for dolphins in relation to their own offspring - perhaps they perceive a person as their cub in trouble?

Another scientifically established fact that speaks in favor of the unconditional superiority of dolphins over the rest of the animal world is their monogamy. If all other inhabitants of the wild create pairs only for the mating period and easily change partners, then dolphins choose their “spouse” for life. They live in real families - with children and the elderly, taking care of relatives who are weak and defenseless due to their age or state of health.

The absence of polygamy, typical of the animal world, suggests that dolphins are at a higher stage of development than other representatives of the terrestrial fauna. And by the way, they are the only ones who do not confirm the popular psychological myth about the polygamous essence of human nature - after all, they, our closest relatives, live in strong families.

Laura Sheremetyeva - What do dolphins sing about. Body of Light. Interesting

Are dolphin abilities a miracle of nature or a parallel to human development?

• It is very difficult to list all the talents inherent in this type of living beings - their diversity can shake the imagination of even experienced researchers of the animal world. Every year a person learns more and more about what these mysterious marine inhabitants know and can do.
• First of all, their subtle hearing is unique to all wildlife. Having left for the second time to live in the water column, the dolphins were faced with the fact that visibility in it is much lower than in the air. But having adapted quickly enough, they became the owners of not just fine hearing. Indeed, in order to perfectly navigate in the water over long distances, it is not enough just to be able to transmit sound, you need to be able to make those objects that are unusual for them “sound”.
• To do this, dolphins use a sound wave - a short click they make, which, having reached an obstacle, returns under water in the form of a kind of echo. This location pulse propagates in water at a speed of up to 1,500 meters per second. Accordingly, the closer the object, the sooner the “sound reflection” will return from it. The intelligence of dolphins makes it possible to estimate this period of time with phenomenal accuracy, and, consequently, to determine the distance to the alleged obstacle.
• At the same time, one dolphin, having received such information about an approaching obstacle or about a large school of fish within reach, betrays this data to its fellows using special sound signals, and at sufficiently large distances. At the same time, each dolphin in the flock is able to distinguish all its members by their characteristic voice intonations, and each of them has its own name. In the course of the experiments, it was found that the level of language development allows one dolphin to explain to his fellows with the help of sounds what action needs to be performed to obtain food. For example, during training, they successfully shared information that if you press the left pedal, a fish will fall out, and if you press the right pedal, then nothing will happen.
• At the same time, their onomatopoeic abilities are also very developed - they can copy anything - from the sound of wheels to the singing of birds, and with such a degree of similarity that it is almost impossible to distinguish on a sound recording where the real sound is and where the "speech" of the dolphin is almost impossible. Training with copying human speech also revealed the ability of dolphins to imitate it.
• If we talk about the ability of these marine mammals to distinguish colors and shapes of objects, as well as analyzer abilities, then here dolphins have left the entire animal world of the planet far behind. So, they easily distinguish three-dimensional forms from flat ones, distinguish between a huge range of colors (only blue causes difficulty), they can easily determine where to look for a particular object.
• An experiment conducted with dolphins by Soviet scientists is very interesting. The ball was shown to the animal, and then it was hidden behind the shirima. When the screen was opened, two objects appeared behind it - a voluminous box and a round flat shield. When sipping on a rope tied to them, the ball fell into the pool. Almost all animals would pay attention to the round shape of the shield and would start looking for the ball in it, not paying attention to the volume. But not a single dolphin was mistaken - they always chose the box correctly the first time, realizing that it was impossible to hide a voluminous ball in a flat object.
• At the same time, dolphins are not only capable students, able to repeat even the most difficult tasks after the coach. They are also good teachers who know how to teach a sequence of actions or a difficult trick to their relatives. Moreover, the rest of the dolphins in the flock adopt new knowledge not under the influence of hierarchical requirements or under duress - they do it out of curiosity and love for everything new. A lot of cases have been recorded when a member of the pack who lived for a certain time in the dolphinarium could then teach his fellow tribesmen everything he learned there.

Dolphins are brave explorers

• Unlike many other marine animals, they always know how to find the optimal balance between caution and curiosity. They are able to protect themselves from the dangers that are fraught with the inhabitants of the deep sea. So, while exploring new territories, they put a sea sponge on their nose, which protects them from the electric discharges of rays or the burning bites of poisonous jellyfish.
• Dolphins are also capable of experiencing quite human feelings of jealousy, resentment, love. Moreover, they will express them quite accessible to a person. For example, a young female who is jealous of a new coach or just a curious person (and most often a female) will do her best to push the “homeowner” away from her partner, while accurately calculating the strength of her actions. She will not hurt or injure a person, but she will definitely make it clear that the presence of this lady near her beloved is highly undesirable.
• Both aggression and pain are not applicable in matters of dolphin training - the animal stops communicating with the offender, turns away from him and demonstrates his indignation at such treatment. It is almost impossible to return an animal to a pair with such a trainer, which once again confirms that they have a long-term memory capable of storing information for a sufficiently long time.
• Well, perhaps the most amazing fact, which indicates that the mind of dolphins is very close to the human one, is their use of tools in their natural habitat. In order to extract fish from cracks in the rocks, they clamp some stick or dead fish in their teeth and use them to push the hidden specimen into open water. This unique ability to use "handy" objects to perform complex actions clearly resembles the stage of human development in which he first turned to the help of primitive tools.

And who knows, perhaps soon people will learn to talk with dolphins and this dialogue will open up new knowledge about the world for us. And a person will learn navigation, the ability to know the weather and escape from marine predators not from boring textbooks, but from living experts on the secrets of the underwater kingdom.

Hypnosis laboratory. Regressive Hypnosis. Dolphins. How to have a gifted child. Hypnosis laboratory.

Behind how del fina m one hundred le kr upny i and sl fire th mo zg?

When the German physiologist M. Tiedemann saw the brain of a dolphin for the first time back in 1827, he was amazed. The brain of a dolphin turned out to be larger than that of a monkey and almost the same as that of a human.

Professor A. Portman from Switzerland conducted research on the mental abilities of animals and found out that according to the results of the test, a person came out on top - 215 points, a dolphin was on the second - 190 points, and an elephant was the third winner. The monkey took only fourth place.

When scientists compared the human and dolphin brains, it turned out that the average human brain weighs about 1.4 kg (Turgenev's largest is 2.12 kg). The brain of a dolphin pulls 1.7 kg. Moreover, the cortex has twice as many convolutions. Isn't this what explains the amazing quick wits and incredible quickness of thinking of the dolphin? He is able to assimilate the amount of knowledge 1.5 times more than you and I. In addition, dolphins have their own spoken language, with which they can communicate with each other and transmit the necessary information.

Why does a dolphin have such a large and complex brain? Of course, not just to eat, swim smartly, produce offspring.

This question interested scientists and they tried to establish who was the ancestor of the dolphin. Remaining elements in the skeleton of animals confirm that they originated from some kind of terrestrial quadrupedal mammals. Blood tests suggested that cetaceans, which include dolphins, and ungulates are relatives. But what made the dolphin ancestor change his terrestrial existence to a water one 65 million years ago, and who, in fact, was he?

It can be assumed that the whole thing is some kind of cosmic cataclysms that touched the Earth and forced animals to seek salvation in the water. After all, it was 65 million years ago that dinosaurs suddenly disappeared from the Earth. Finally, what was the land in those days: tiny islands in the vast expanse of the oceans. It could happen that someone did not have enough space on this small land.

Who knows, maybe the forerunner of man and dolphin was the same creature: having picked up a stick from the ground, it went through a grandiose path of earthly evolution and became a man, and, returning to the sea, it became a dolphin.

Like it or not, it is difficult to say with accuracy. However, one thing is absolutely clear: if man is the crown of creation on Earth, then the dolphin is the crown of creation in the ocean, "the king of the expanses of the sea."

Dolphins give birth to babies in the water. At the time of childbirth, the female raises her tail high above the water, the dolphin is born in the air and has time to breathe before it falls into the water. For the first few hours, the baby dolphin swims like a float in an upright position, slightly moving its front flippers: it has accumulated a sufficient supply of fat in the womb, and its density is less than that of water. There is always a mother and one or two more females nearby.

The dolphin feeds on mother's milk for the first time. When sucking, the baby’s lips are replaced by a tongue rolled into a tube: he covers the mother’s nipple with it, and she splashes milk into his mouth. All this happens underwater: the respiratory canal is separated from the esophagus, and the dolphin can swallow food underwater without fear of choking. After 3 years, he becomes an adult. Dolphins live up to 30 years. Cubs are born once every 2 years.

Dolphins move easily and quickly in the water. With a sudden jump, he throws the body out of the water in order to take a breath. Their shiny bodies amaze with a perfectly streamlined shape, reminiscent of a drop or a torpedo. The muzzle is extended into a narrow beak, the nostrils are merged into one "blowhole", from which the animal can release a fountain of spray 1-1.5 m high.

An adult dolphin is capable of reaching speeds of over 50 km/h. This speed is facilitated not only by the streamlined shape of the body, but also by the special properties of the skin. The outer layer - about 1.5 mm - is extremely elastic. The inner layer with a thickness of about 4 mm consists of a dense fabric. Interestingly, the inner part of the outer layer is permeated with many passages and tubes filled with a soft fatty substance. By the way, artificial skin for submarines is similar in quality to dolphin skin.

Dolphins have complex audio signaling. They are able to create and perceive ultrasounds. Precise sonar makes it possible for them to detect objects the size of an acorn in water at a distance of up to 15 m. Thanks to echolocation, dolphins find food and avoid collisions with obstacles even in completely muddy water.

Examples

Once a passenger ship was wrecked. Several people survived. None of them believed that they could survive. And when they saw a flock of sharks approaching them, they said goodbye to each other. But suddenly a miracle happened. A flock of dolphins rushed from the open sea, fearlessly dispersing a flock of sharks. And she helped people stay afloat until help arrived.

An even more striking incident occurred with the fishermen in the same place in the Black Sea. A flock of dolphins surrounded the launch and swam nearby, making sounds and clearly trying to attract the attention of people. The dolphins circled around the ship until people realized that the animals were worried about something. Following them, they found a captured dolphin. Having fought off the flock, he got tangled in a fishing net. The cub was rescued and released.

The fate of the famous dolphin Tuffy, an honorary member of the American underwater expedition, is interesting. The dolphin worked as a postman and conductor, bringing appliances and tools. If one of the aquanauts swam too far into the sea and lost his bearings, Tuffy always came to the rescue and led the lost one to the house on a nylon leash. After such a brilliant debut, Tuffy was accepted into service at one of the US missile ranges. He searched the sea for the electronic devices of spent rocket stages. All equipment was crammed with miniature ultrasonic transmitters. The dolphin was in a hurry to their "call signs".

Dolphin Polorus Jack, so nicknamed by English sailors, has been guiding ships through the dangerous strait in New Zealand for 25 years as a real pilot.

Not so long ago, an absolutely amazing incident occurred in the marine aquarium in Miami. Several dolphins caught in the ocean were brought here for training. Not far from the recruits were already trained dolphins. They did not see each other. And yet, a conversation immediately began between them. All night long strange sounds and noises were heard from the pool. The unthinkable happened in the morning. The new dolphins immediately began to perform all the tricks that people intended to teach them. It seems that their brothers, who have long lived in the pool, told them about this.

V. Avdeenko.

The distant ancestors of dolphins lived on land. Only about 70 million years ago they went to live in the ocean. Why? Because in difficult periods of history, only aquatic organisms can survive on Earth. The longer people study dolphins, the less improbable the hypothesis seems that these mammals created their own civilization, indistinguishable in complexity from ours.

The level of mental development of dolphins is very high. To what extent, the person has not yet been able to establish. Perhaps this species is in no way inferior to Homo sapiens in terms of intelligence. The dolphin brain surpassed the human brain both in weight and in the number of convolutions and nerve cells in the cortex.

Dolphins have their own communication system, which is in no way inferior to human language. The language of dolphins includes both gestures (turns of the head, tail, fins, various postures, jumps) and various sounds, which are sound and ultrasonic impulses.

Only whistles in the language of dolphins, the researchers counted 32 varieties. Each of them carries certain information - a greeting signal, the call of relatives, an expression of alarm, and so on. Interestingly, some native tribes of the Canary Islands and Mexico at a great distance also communicate with the help of a whistle.

By scanning the language of dolphins using the Zipf method, scientists have received indisputable evidence that it serves to transmit information, like human speech. The Zipf method allows you to determine whether sounds carry informational meaning. Its essence lies in determining the frequency of repetition of identical letters in speech. In the form of a mathematical graph, the speech of intelligent beings has the form of an inclined line, and random noises are located strictly horizontally. So, the speech of dolphins had the same slope coefficient on the graph as the language of people.

It was possible to isolate about 200 communication signs in the vocabulary of communication of these mammals. But their deciphering is slow and difficult. The sound communication of dolphins occurs in the range up to 300 kHz, while humans communicate with each other in the frequency band up to 20 kHz. Like humans, dolphins' speech has six levels of organization, from sound to context. But if people begin to understand each other only from the third level (word), then dolphins communicate even with the help of monosyllabic sounds.

There are many similarities between humans and dolphins. And this applies not only to the complexity of the organization of speech. Dolphins live as long as people, create families, love to communicate, grow up at the same age. Depending on the region of habitat, the language of dolphins differs slightly, which allows us to draw a parallel with the national languages ​​of people.

American scientists have found that each dolphin at birth receives a name from its relatives (a certain form of whistle lasting 0.9 seconds), which it responds to throughout its life. Dolphins refer to each other by name when communicating.

If the dolphin is alone in the pool, then it is silent. But as soon as another individual appears nearby, they begin to reproduce the richest set of sounds.

The study shows that approximately eight of the 67 species of Odontoceti (including dolphins) went through an EQ increase approximately 15 million years ago, reaching factors of 4 and 5, although the reasons for this second evolutionary leap remain completely unclear (there is only one such case of "explosive" development "intelligence" among large animals, known to scientists today: over five million years of human history, EQ has increased from about 2.5 to 7). At the same time, the "mental abilities" of the rest of the "dolphin tribe" for some reason, on the contrary, decreased.