Why do dolphins have developed brains? What kind of brain does a dolphin have? Natural pain relievers of dolphins

Dolphins smarter than people - a phrase ridiculing mental capacity of a person by comparing his intelligence with that of dolphins. Such memes usually talk about stupid actions and pointless arguments that are inherent in humans. And contrasted with all this is a dolphin, which does not commit such actions.

Origin

It is believed that dolphins are the most intelligent mammals on the planet after humans. However, the meme is most likely based on 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 man is higher than the intelligence of a dolphin, for the simple reason that man has created so many useful things - the wheel, New York, wars, etc. - while the dolphins just chilled in the water. But dolphins, on the contrary, have always considered themselves much more smarter than a person- on the same basis. Douglas Adams

The “Dolphins are smarter than people” meme can exist both in the form of regular text and as a picture. The most established macro contains an image of a conventional scientist who concludes: “So dolphins have once again proven that they are one of the smartest creatures on Earth.”

Meaning

The dolphin meme makes fun of hobbies, stupid actions and the general image of people. This is expressed in the fact that the dolphin responds to another meaningless argument with “I don’t care,” thereby confirming its intelligence.

Using the same principle, some memes ridicule things and phenomena that are familiar to people. Have you ever seen a dolphin pay for his studies for 5 years in order to work outside his profession? No. Because a dolphin is smarter than a human.

Gallery

In Douglas Adams's brilliant classic, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there were several animals smarter than humans. One - not without irony - was an ordinary laboratory mouse. Another creature knew about the intergalactic bulldozers that eventually vaporized the planet, and tried to warn us of the coming fate. Last message the dolphins were misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double somersault through a hoop while whistling a cheerful song, but the real message was: "All the best and thanks for the fish!"

Dolphins are said to have an unusual level of intelligence that sets them apart and elevates them above the rest of the animal kingdom. It is widely believed that dolphins are highly intelligent (possibly smarter than humans), have complex behavior, and have proto-language abilities. However, recently, against the backdrop of research on these animals, a slightly different, sometimes opposite, opinion has emerged.

The dolphin's exalted status among animals dates back to John Lilly, a 1960s dolphin researcher and psychotropic drug enthusiast. He first popularized the idea that dolphins are smart, and later even suggested that they are smarter than humans.

Ultimately, after the 1970s, Lilly was largely discredited and did not contribute great contribution into the science of dolphin cognition. But despite the efforts of mainstream scientists to distance themselves from his fanciful ideas (that dolphins were spiritually enlightened) and even his craziest ones (that dolphins communicated through holographic images), his name is inevitably associated with dolphin research.

"He is, and I think most dolphin scientists would agree with me, the father of the study of dolphin intelligence," writes Justin Gregg in Are Dolphins Really Smart?

Since Lilly's research, dolphins have shown that they understand signals transmitted by television screens, recognize parts of their bodies, recognize their own image in a mirror, and have a complex repertoire of whistles and even names.

In any case, all these ideas in Lately are subject to doubt. Gregg's book is the latest tug of war between neuroanatomy, behavior and communication - between the ideas that dolphins are special and that they are on par with many other creatures.

Why big brains

So far, the debunking of dolphin abilities has focused on two main topics: anatomy and behavior.

Munger, a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand South Africa, previously claimed that big brain The dolphin likely evolved to help the animal stay warm rather than to perform cognitive functions. This 2006 paper was widely criticized by the dolphin research community.

In his new work (also written by Munger), he takes a critical look at brain anatomy, archaeological records and much-cited behavioral studies, concluding that cetaceans are no smarter than other invertebrates and that their large brains evolved for a different purpose. This time he cites as an example many behavioral observations, such as image recognition in a mirror, which was carried out in September 2011 and appeared as a result in Discover. Munger found them incomplete, incorrect, or outdated.

Laurie Marino, a neuroanatomist at Emory University who advocates for big-brain intelligence, is working on a refutation.

Smarter!

Another argument is that the behavior of dolphins is not as impressive as they say, says Gregg. As a professional dolphin researcher, he notes that he respects dolphins' "accomplishments" in the field of cognition, but feels that the public and other researchers have slightly overestimated their actual level of cognitive ability. Additionally, many other animals display similarly impressive traits.

In his book, Gregg cites experts who question the value of the mirror self-perception test, which is thought to indicate some degree of self-awareness. Gregg notes that octopuses and pigeons can behave like dolphins if you give them a mirror.

Additionally, Gregg argues that dolphin communication is overrated. While their whistles and clicks are certainly complex forms of audio signals, they nevertheless do not have the features characteristic of human language (such as the conclusion of finite concepts and meanings or freedom from emotion).

He also criticizes attempts to apply information theory, a branch of mathematics, to the information contained in dolphin whistles. Is it even possible to apply information theory to animal communication? Gregg has doubts, and he's not alone.

Gregg points out that dolphins certainly have many impressive cognitive abilities, but so do many other animals. And not necessarily the smartest: Many chickens are as smart as dolphins at some tasks, Gregg says. Spiders also demonstrate amazing cognitive abilities, and they even have eight eyes.

Thirst for knowledge

It's important to note that researchers like Munger are in the minority among scientists studying dolphin cognition. Moreover, even Gregg tries to distance himself from the idea that dolphins are mediocrity - he rather says that other animals are smarter than we thought.

Even Gordon Gallup, the behavioral neuroscientist who pioneered the use of mirrors to assess self-awareness in primates, expresses doubts that dolphins are capable of this.

“In my opinion, the videos taken during this experiment are not convincing,” he said in 2011. “They are suggestive, but not convincing.”

The arguments against dolphin exceptionalism boil down to three main ideas. First, according to Munger, dolphins are simply no smarter than other animals. Secondly, it is difficult to compare one species with another. Third, there is too little research on this topic to draw strong conclusions.

Despite their reputation for exceptional intelligence, dolphins may not be as smart as they thought.

Scott Norris, writing in Bioscience, notes that the "cunning Scott Lilly" had a big hand in creating the image " smart dolphins"in the 1960s. He was fascinated by dolphins and spent years teaching them to talk. Lilly were unethical, sometimes even immoral, but he was not the only one trying to teach language to animals, which were credited with the rudiments of intelligence. Complex communications are born from social systems, A social interactions require other traits that are often associated with intelligence. To form and remember social connections, learn new behaviors, and work together, we need culture.

From this perspective, dolphins do exhibit behaviors and practices associated with culture and advanced intelligence. Norris notes that studies of wild dolphins and whales show that their vocalizations are varied and specific enough to be considered language. Dolphins easily learn new behavior and are even capable of imitation. They track complex social hierarchies within and between groups. They have even been known to invent new forms of behavior in response to new situations, which Norris says some scientists consider "the most distinctive feature intelligence." Moreover, dolphins can even teach each other these new behaviors. Norris describes how some populations of dolphins used sponges to protect themselves from scratches and taught others this technique. This transfer of practices is considered by many to be the birth of culture.

Yes, dolphins appear to be more intelligent than many species, but their behavior is in no way unique to dolphins. Many animals, such as wild boars, dogs, primates or sea ​​lions, have complex vocalizations, social relationships, the ability to learn, imitate and adapt to new situations that are equally complex. Many skills, particularly learning, are more developed in other species than in dolphins. Cultural exchange, which has yet to be proven in dolphins, is less common, but other animals have not yet been well studied. Other examples may be identified.

The problem is not only whether dolphins are smart, because at some level they are smart, but whether they are smarter than other animals, and that remains to be seen. They like to attribute human traits to dolphins. You can see “faces” and “smiles” in many dolphins, which cannot be said, for example, about a wild boar. Looking at this grinning face, we begin to see people in dolphins. Are dolphins smart? It all depends on how smart you want them to be.

Dolphins are the most intelligent mammals on earth. The brain of a dolphin is similar in structure. Despite numerous studies, they remain the most mysterious mammals on earth.

Research into the extraordinary capabilities of sea creatures has confirmed their intellectual abilities. Through MRI diagnostics, scientists discovered that the complexity of brain structures in dolphins is not inferior to the human center, but on the contrary, in comparison with humans, there are even an order of magnitude more convolutions and nerve cells.

The brain of a bottlenose dolphin weighs 1700 grams, a total of 350 grams. exceeding the weight of the central organ nervous system in an adult man. External difference only in shape: in mammals it has the shape of a sphere, the human brain is slightly flattened. The associative area of ​​the cortex is absolutely identical to humans, thereby confirming the presence of intelligence in marine inhabitants.

The parietal lobe in dolphins is comparable in size to the parietal and frontal lobes in humans. The visual part of the brain (occipital) is very large in mammals.

Despite excellent vision and the ability to move eyeballs in different directions, thereby covering a radius of 300 degrees; mammals use ultrasound for vision - directing it at various objects. Pushing off, the sound returns, thereby the dolphin determines the shape and distance to the object.

Unlike humans, dolphins' brains can survive without sleep - which is fatal for humans. The peculiarity of these creatures is the ability to turn off one half of the center, while maintaining all reactions. One part of the brain takes over all functions when the other is in a state of sleep - this is equivalent to having two centers.

Dolphins, like humans, have the ability to produce sound. Mammals can accurately copy various noises or trills of birds. Communication between relatives occurs through signals that are formed by the passage of air through the nasal canals.

Dolphin vocabulary:

• Basic beeps (about 60);
• Five levels of their different combinations;
• 14 thousand different signals.

It's identical vocabulary human and if you translate the sound of mammals into words, it will look like a hieroglyph. Dolphins have good memory and mental abilities, which allows them, like humans, to pass on experience to generations.

Feature central office, in cetaceans is the presence of magnetic crystals that orient themselves in a wide space of the ocean.

Who's smarter?

Numerous studies of the brain structures of cetaceans confirm their evolutionary development and the presence highest form reason (logic). Australian scientists have classified dolphins as the closest relatives of humans, based on DNA analysis.

Perhaps this became the basis for the hypothesis - all cetaceans are the distant ancestors of humans and they were forced to leave land by compelling reasons. The size of the hemispheres is explained by oxygen starvation and, as a result, the enlargement of the organ.

Ichthyologists have proven that the mammalian brain is capable of expressing feelings: jealousy, resentment, love. This indicates the presence of long-term memory and intelligence close to the person.

Certain individuals of dolphins perceive complex linguistic structures and are capable of analyzing the situation. Their intelligence level is similar to that of a preschool child.

Dolphins' large brains are not associated with great intelligence - there are too few neurons. Central authority sea ​​creatures needed for orientation in space and heat regulation. Based on this, mammals occupy an honorable second place in intellectual development after the person.

Prepared material
Ekaterina Sivkova

Each week, Look At Me takes a look at a popular misconception and tries to figure out why it is so attractive to the majority of people who advocate it, and ultimately why it is not true. In the new issue - that dolphins have a completely unfounded reputation as the smartest mammals.

Statement:

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

What has attracted the attention of scientists around the world to the extraordinary intelligence of dolphins is primarily the size of their brains. The adult brain 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 after 10–20 years a person will be able to master this language and establish communication. In addition, dolphins stand out from other intelligent animals due to the presence of self-awareness (they are able to recognize themselves in the mirror) and emotional sympathy (readiness to come to the aid of other individuals). In India, for example, dolphins are officially recognized as individuals, and dolphinariums throughout the country are banned because they violate the right of dolphins 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 recognize linguistic structures (mainly written language) if they are accompanied by the performance of an action or the demonstration of an object. They are able to perceive complex linguistic structures such as syntax, analyze the behavior of others, “cheat” for their own benefit, and recognize their reflection in the mirror - something that some babies are not capable of. In fact, their level of intelligence and awareness is at the level of a preschool child.”

Why this is not true:

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

Justin Gregg, author of the book 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. And the emotional sympathy of dolphins is extremely exaggerated: they are able to attack humans and kill the young of other species (for example, porpoises). According to animal acoustic communication specialist Jay Mortan, dolphins need large brains for no more than to keep their heads warm and navigate.

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

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

When scientists compared the brains of humans and dolphins, 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. Does this explain the amazing intelligence and incredible speed of thinking of the dolphin? He is able to absorb a volume of knowledge 1.5 times greater than you and I. In addition, dolphins have their own colloquial speech, with the help of which they can communicate with each other and transmit the necessary information.

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

This question interested scientists and they tried to establish who the dolphin’s ancestor was. Residual elements in the animals' skeletons confirm that they descended from some kind of land-based four-legged mammals. Blood tests suggested that cetaceans, which include dolphins, and ungulates are related. But what made the dolphin ancestor change his earthly existence to an aquatic one 65 million years ago and who, in fact, was he?

It can be assumed that the whole point is some kind of cosmic cataclysm 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 like in those days: tiny islands in the vast expanse of the World Ocean. It could happen that on this small land there was not enough space for someone.

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

Whether this is true or not is difficult to say with certainty. 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 sea.”

Dolphins give birth to their babies in the water. At the moment of birth, the female raises her tail high above the water, the baby dolphin is born in the air and manages to breathe before it falls into the water. For the first few hours, the baby dolphin swims like a float in vertical position, moving his front flippers slightly: he 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 other females nearby.

The baby dolphin initially feeds on its mother's milk. When the baby sucks, the lips are replaced by a tongue rolled into a tube: it 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 his body out of the water in order to take a breath. Their shiny bodies amaze with their perfectly streamlined shape, reminiscent of a drop or a torpedo. The muzzle is elongated into a narrow beak, the nostrils are fused into one “blowhole”, from which the animal can release a fountain of spray 1-1.5 m high.

An adult dolphin can reach 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 is approximately 1.5 mm and is extremely elastic. The inner layer is about 4 mm thick and consists of dense fabric. Interestingly, the inside of the outer layer is penetrated by many passages and tubes filled with a soft, fatty substance. By the way, artificial cladding for submarines its quality resembles that of dolphin skin.

Dolphins have complex sound signaling. They are capable of creating and receiving ultrasounds. An accurate 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

One day, a passenger ship crashed. Several people survived. None of them believed that they could survive. And when they saw a school of sharks approaching them, they said goodbye to each other. But suddenly a miracle happened. From open sea A school of dolphins quickly rushed in, fearlessly dispersing a school of sharks. And she helped people stay on the water until help arrived.

An even more striking incident occurred with fishermen in the Black Sea. A school of dolphins surrounded the longboat 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 discovered a captured dolphin. Having lost his way from the flock, he became entangled in a fishing net. The cub was rescued and released.

The fate of the famous dolphin Taffy, an honorary member of the American underwater expedition, is interesting. The dolphin worked as a postman and guide, bringing instruments and equipment. 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 person to the house on a nylon leash. After such a brilliant debut, Taffy was recruited to serve at one of the US missile sites. He searched the sea for electronic devices of spent rocket stages. All the equipment was stuffed with miniature ultrasonic transmitters. It was their “call signs” that the dolphin hurried to.

The dolphin Polorus Jack, so nicknamed by English sailors, guided ships through a dangerous strait in New Zealand for 25 years as a seasoned pilot.

Not long ago in marine aquarium An absolutely amazing incident happened in Miami. Several dolphins caught in the ocean were brought here for training. Not far from the recruits were already trained dolphins. They didn't see each other. And yet, a conversation immediately began between them. All night long strange sounds and noises were coming from the pool. This morning the incredible happened. The new dolphins immediately began to perform all the tricks that people intended to teach them. It seems that their brothers who had been living in the pool for a long time told them about this.

V. Avdeenko.

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

Level mental development dolphins are very high. The person has not yet been able to determine exactly how much. Perhaps this species is in no way inferior to Homo sapiens in terms of intelligence. The brain of dolphins 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 (turning the head, tail, fins, various poses, jumping) and a variety of sounds, which are sound and ultrasonic impulses.

Researchers have counted 32 varieties of whistles alone in the language of dolphins. Each of them carries certain information - a greeting signal, a call to relatives, an expression of alarm, etc. Interestingly, some native tribes Canary Islands and Mexico also communicate over long distances using a whistle.

Having scanned the tongue of dolphins using the Zipf method, scientists have received indisputable evidence that it serves to transmit information, just like human speech. The Zipf method allows you to determine whether sounds carry informational meaning. Its essence is to determine the frequency of repetition of identical letters in speech. In the form of a mathematical graph, the speech of intelligent beings has the shape 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 identify about 200 communication signs in the communication dictionary of these mammals. But deciphering them is slow and difficult. Dolphins' audio communication occurs in the range up to 300 kHz, while humans communicate with each other in the frequency range up to 20 kHz. Like humans, dolphin 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.

Humans and dolphins have a lot in common. And this applies not only to the complexity of organizing speech. Dolphins live as long as people, create families, love to communicate, and mature at the same age. Depending on the region where they live, the language of dolphins differs slightly, which allows us to draw a parallel with national languages of people.

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

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

The study shows that approximately eight of the 67 species of Odontoceti (including dolphins) went through a stage of increasing EQ 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 "mental ability" among large animals, known to scientists today: over five million years of human history, EQ has increased from approximately 2.5 to 7). At the same time, the “mental abilities” of the remaining part of the “dolphin tribe” for some reason, on the contrary, decreased.