How smart are dolphins really? Scientists compared the intelligence of dolphins and other animals: rats, pigs, elephants and even raccoons. The brains of humans and dolphins - description, characteristics, comparison and interesting facts What dolphins can do

I recently posted a post on LJ about dolphins. About their extermination by people
Some comments from seemingly reasonable people amazed me... “Well, don’t you understand,” they wrote to me under this post, “After all, dolphins eat almost all the fish and people, the Danes and Japanese, have nothing to eat..
-Well, people kill wolves so that wolves don’t eat our rams, sheep, cows... Wolves are also smart animals...
The plan of the World Government immediately popped into my head that no more than 500 million inhabitants should remain on Earth.
“And in Russia, 10 million is enough,” Margaret Thatcher said publicly.
This information is in the public domain; anyone interested can study this plan for the depopulation of people on Earth.
There is nothing, they say, to feed all these billions of people. Work to reduce the population has been going on for a long time.
This is also well known. Alcohol, drugs, GMO products, vaccines, vaccinations, chemicals in dishes, in cosmetics, invented diseases. And wars, of course, are also there..
They kill medicine in Russia, that’s why too. Why do we need healthy people?
During the time of Peter the Great, amaranth was almost destroyed. But before, the Rus used to bake amaranth bread. They ate amaranth, which can very quickly fill a person.
Amaranth contains many vitamins.
But people are forced to eat the wrong food on purpose. Many plants and vegetables that are healthy for humans are banned.
And I will never believe that by killing dolphins, a person stops being hungry. A person can eat a lot of things. And there are a lot of things to be satisfied with, besides fish, in the end.
The killings of dolphins remind me of Sacrifice. This is the answer to these killings. Since dolphins are intelligent creatures. By the way, sometimes anyone is interested, dolphins can communicate telepathically. Strong telepaths can understand what they want to convey to a person. Dolphins know each other by name.
Sharks are afraid of dolphins. Why? A school of dolphins can attack sharks with a powerful psionic blow.
In 1987, a group of scientists arrived at the Batumi Dolphinarium. Among them was Natalya, a telepath. So Natalya was able to establish a telepathic connection with the dolphin Lada.
She was very happy and told them that they had to perform stupid tricks in order not to die of hunger. She also said that the trainer hides fresh fish and gives them rotten ones))
Once he hit Lada in the face (or face?) When Natalya asked the trainer about all this, he was clearly confused. How did Natalya know all this?
The trainer could not even imagine that a stupid animal could tell all this...
Once upon a time, on the island of Crete, there was a cult of the Dolphin. Ancient sculptures of dolphins and images of dolphins are found throughout the island. People of the past knew how to communicate telepathically with dolphins.
In 1949, the American psychoanalyst John Lilly, known for his work in the field of neurophysiology and psychiatry, learned from his fellow zoologists that cetaceans have a brain that is larger in absolute weight than the human brain. This fact shocked Lilly so much that he long years delved into the study of dolphins. After 12 years, the researcher expressed the astonishing idea that on our planet there may be another truly intelligent humanoid, comparable to humans in terms of their level. mental development. And in 1967, his acclaimed book “The Mind of a Dolphin” was published. Intelligence beyond man." The scientist was not afraid to declare to the whole world that people will have to free themselves from the usual ideas about “homo sapiens” as the crown of creation.
Dolphins are the second intelligent Race on Earth.
If Man can again establish telepathic communication with them, dolphins will be able to tell us a lot about the secrets of the World Ocean..

There were several animals in Douglas Adams' brilliant classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy smarter than people. 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. The dolphins' latest message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double somersault through a hoop while whistling a cheerful song, but in reality the 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 very intelligent (possibly smarter than humans), have challenging 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 made little contribution to 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 argued that the dolphin's large brain 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 behavior and work together, a culture is needed.

From this perspective, dolphins do exhibit behaviors and practices associated with culture and developed intellect. 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 relations, the ability to learn, imitate and adapt to new situations, 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.

Dolphin is a beautiful creature of nature. This warm-blooded mammal can cause a storm of emotions in the soul of any person, and meeting a dolphin will undoubtedly make a huge impression. Dolphins are one of the the most amazing creatures on our planet. There are legends about their intellectual abilities, the unique hearing of mammals is amazing, and the mutual assistance and self-sacrifice that dolphins go to for the sake of their fellow creatures will not leave anyone indifferent. The abilities of dolphins have long been the object of close study. So what has science managed to find out about these mysterious creatures?

Dolphin intelligence

The dolphin is, of course, a rational animal. And the point here is not at all in the volume of the brain. * By the way, the dolphin brain is similar in weight to the human brain. Size doesn't matter in this case. After all, for example, an elephant has an even larger brain. However, amazing intelligence is not observed in representatives of this animal. Another thing is dolphins. Swiss scientists who conducted research on the abilities of animals found that in terms of intelligence, dolphins occupy second place after, naturally, humans. The elephants were third, and the monkeys took only fourth place. What are the intellectual abilities of dolphins? First of all, it is worth noting the fast learning ability of marine inhabitants. Dolphins sometimes learn to follow commands even faster than dogs. It is enough for the dolphin to show the trick 2-3 times, and he will easily repeat it. In addition, dolphins also exhibit Creative skills. Thus, the animal is not only capable of fulfilling the trainer’s instructions, but also performing some other tricks in the process. Another surprising property of the dolphin brain is that it never truly sleeps. Right and left hemisphere brains rest alternately. After all, a dolphin must always be on alert: avoid predators and periodically float to the surface to breathe.

Dolphin Hearing

Nature has endowed dolphins with a unique hearing that operates on the principle of an echolocator. Very often hearing replaces vision for dolphins. It is hearing that helps these marine inhabitants find food at night or in muddy water, avoid dangers in the form of predators and do not bump into obstacles. The hearing of dolphins and other cetaceans is 400-1000 times sharper than humans! And the range of sounds they perceive is very wide. Dolphins distinguish sounds in the range from 1 hertz to 320 kilohertz, which is 15 times higher than the limits of audibility of the human ear. Dolphins are best at detecting ultrasound.

Dolphin language

Dolphins are social animals that live in schools. And they manage to find the language of communication in a pack much faster than a person in his own society. Dolphin communication is expressed in sound pulses and ultrasound. Marine inhabitants make a wide variety of sounds: whistling, chirping, buzzing, squeaking, squealing, smacking, clicking, grinding, popping, roaring, screaming, creaking, etc. The most expressive is whistling, the variety of which numbers several dozen. Each of them means a certain phrase (alarm, pain, call, greeting, warning, etc.) American scientists have come to the conclusion that each dolphin in the school has its own name, and the individual responds to it when relatives address the dolphin. No other animal has such an ability.

Ability to dive to great depths

No less amazing is another ability of dolphins - to dive to depths of up to 300 meters without signs of decompression sickness. * Caisson disease is a disease that occurs during a rapid transition from the environment high pressure into an environment with lower pressure. It is known that when diving to depth, water pressure increases by 1 atmosphere every 10 meters. At a depth of 300 meters, a force of 30 kilograms acts on one square centimeter of a dolphin’s body. For a person, diving even 100 meters is dangerous. But not only do dolphins withstand such strong water pressure, these mammals also emerge from the depths to high speed. A quick return to the surface, for example, can be fatal for a diver.

Regeneration ability

An amazing property of the dolphin body is the rapid healing of wounds. Even with deep and serious injuries, dolphins do not bleed. These sea creatures can use their ability to dive to depths and thereby delay the flow of blood until it begins to clot. Dolphin wounds do not become infected. The skin and subcutaneous fat of mammals contain antibacterial substances that prevent the development of infection in the wound. The healing properties of the dolphin's body are also unique. Even in wounds the size of two footballs, the tissue is completely replaced. In this case, no injuries or scars are observed. Nature sometimes makes us wonder amazing riddles. And one of them is, undoubtedly, the dolphin. About these sea ​​creatures we still know very little. Not all of the abilities of dolphins have been studied. But even what is known about them today is already amazing.

Dolphins are the most intelligent creatures created by nature. For many centuries, their behavior has attracted and excited the imagination of people. Meeting them can cause a storm of enthusiastic emotions. Myths and legends were made about their lives. And the extraordinary abilities of these animals remain a mystery to this day.

In the depths of centuries

Dolphins appeared on Earth more than 70 million years ago. Their origin, which explains their abilities, is shrouded in legends and secrets no less than the appearance of man. People have been studying how dolphins' brains work, their intelligence and habits for many centuries. However, these animals were able to study us much better. For a short period they lived on land, onto which they emerged from a reservoir, and then returned back to the water. Scientists cannot explain this phenomenon to this day. However, there is an assumption that when people find dolphins they will be able to tell us a lot about their lives. However, this is unlikely.

Unusual Facts About the Dolphin Brain

Scientists from many countries around the world are haunted by the dolphin's brain. They are trying to understand how it works. Possessing social skills, trainability and understanding of human behavior, these amazing animals are certainly different from other representatives of the fauna. Their brains have undergone unprecedented development over the past few tens of millions of years. One of the differences between the dolphin and human brains is that the animals have learned to turn off one half of the brain so that it can rest. These are the only representatives of the animal world, naturally, besides people, who are able to communicate in their own language, through a complex combination of various sounds and clicks. Scientists have discovered that dolphins have the basics logical thinking, i.e. the highest form of development of the mind. And this amazing fact has been revealed in mammals. These animals are able to decide the most difficult riddles, find answers to difficult questions and adjust your behavior to the circumstances set by the person.

The dolphin's brain is larger than the human brain, so the brain of an adult animal weighs 1 kg 700 g, and the human brain weighs 300 g less. A human has half as many convolutions as a dolphin. Researchers have collected materials on the presence of these representatives not only of self-awareness, but also of social consciousness. The number of nerve cells also exceeds their number in humans. Animals are capable of echolocation. An acoustic lens, which is located on the head, focuses sound waves (ultrasound), with the help of which the dolphin feels, as it were, existing underwater objects and determines their shape. The next amazing ability is the ability to feel magnetic poles. Dolphins have special magnetic crystals in their brains that help them navigate the ocean waters.

Dolphin and human brains: comparison

The dolphin is, of course, the most intelligent and intelligent animal on the planet. Scientists have found that as air passes through the nasal canals, sound signals are formed in them. These amazing animals use:

• about sixty basic sound signals;
• up to five levels of their various combinations;
• the so-called vocabulary of approximately 14 thousand signals.

The average person's vocabulary is the same. In everyday life, he uses 800-1000 different words. If the dolphin signal is translated into a human one, it will most likely resemble a hieroglyph indicating a word and an action. The ability of animals to communicate is considered a sensation. The difference between the human and dolphin brains lies in the number of convolutions; the latter has twice as many.

Studying Dolphin DNA

Australian scientists, after comparing the DNA of humans and dolphins, concluded that these mammals are our closest relatives. As a result, the legend that they are the descendants of people who lived in Atlantis developed. And after these highly civilized inhabitants went into the ocean, no one knows exactly what happened to them. According to legend, they turned into inhabitants depths of the sea and preserved love for a person in memory of past life. Adherents of this beautiful legend claim that since there is a similarity in the intellect, DNA structures and brain of a person with a dolphin, then people have a common origin with them.

Dolphin abilities

Ichthyologists who study the phenomenal abilities of dolphins claim that they occupy an honorable second place in terms of intelligence development after humans. And here apes- only the fourth.

If we compare the brain of a human and a dolphin, then the weight of the brain of an adult animal is from 1.5 to 1.7 kg, which is certainly more than that of humans. And, for example, the ratio of body to brain sizes in chimpanzees is significantly lower than in dolphins. The complex chain of relationships and collective organization indicates the existence of a special civilization of these living beings.

Test results conducted by scientists

When comparing the brain weight of a human and a dolphin and their body weight, the ratio will be the same. During tests on the level of mental development, these creatures showed amazing results. It turned out that dolphins scored only nineteen points less than people. Scientists have concluded that animals are capable of understanding human thinking and have good analytical abilities.

One neurophysiologist, well-known in scientific circles, who worked with dolphins for quite a long time, made the following conclusion - that it is these representatives of the animal world who will be the first to establish contact, and consciously, with human civilization. What will help dolphins in communication is that they have an individual highly developed language, excellent memory and mental abilities that allow them to transfer accumulated knowledge and experience from generation to generation. Another assumption of scientists is that if these animals had differently developed limbs, they would be able to write, due to the similarity of their minds with humans.

Some features

In times of trouble that overtakes a person in the sea or ocean, dolphins save a person. Eyewitnesses tell how the animals drove away predator sharks for several hours, not giving any chance to get closer to humans, and then helped them swim to the shore. This is precisely the attitude that is characteristic of adults towards their offspring. Perhaps they perceive a person in trouble as their cub. The superiority of these representatives of the animal world over other inhabitants lies in their monogamy. Unlike other animals that look for a mate only for mating and easily change partners, dolphins choose them for life. They live large families, together with the elderly and children, caring for them throughout their entire life. Thus, the absence of polygamy, present in almost all faunal inhabitants, indicates their higher stage of development.

The keen hearing of dolphins

The uniqueness lies in the fact that the ability to reproduce a special sound using a sound wave helps to navigate expanses of water over long distances. Dolphins emit a so-called click, which, having encountered an obstacle, returns to them in the form of a special impulse, spreading through the water at great speed.

The closer the object is, the faster the echo will return. Developed intelligence allows them to estimate the distance to an obstacle with maximum accuracy. In addition, the dolphin transmits the received information over vast distances to its fellows using special signals. Each animal has its own name, and by the characteristic intonations of its voice they are able to distinguish all members of the pack.

Language development and onomatopoeia

Using a special language, animals can explain to their fellow animals what needs to be done to get food. For example, during training sessions at the dolphinarium, they share information about which pedal needs to be pressed to make a fish fall out. The human and dolphin brains are capable of producing sounds. The ability of the latter to imitate them is manifested in the ability of animals to accurately copy and transmit various sounds: the sound of wheels, the singing of birds. The uniqueness also lies in the fact that in the recording it is impossible to distinguish where the real sound is and where it is an imitation. In addition, dolphins are able to copy human speech, although not with such accuracy.

Dolphins - teachers and researchers

They are interested in teaching their relatives the knowledge and skills they possess. Dolphins perceive information out of curiosity to learn new things, and not under duress. There are known cases where an animal for a long time who lived in the dolphinarium, helped the trainers teach their brothers various tricks. Unlike other inhabitants of the seabed, they find a balance between curiosity and danger. When exploring new territories, they put something on their nose that can protect them from all sorts of troubles that they encounter along the way.

The feelings and mind of an animal

It has been proven that the dolphin brain, like the human brain, is capable of expressing feelings. These animals can experience resentment, jealousy, love, and they will express these feelings quite easily. For example, if during training an animal was subjected to aggression or pain, the dolphin will show indignation and will never work with such a person.

This just confirms that they have long-term memory. Animals have close human mind. For example, to extract a fish from a rocky crevice, they clamp a stick between their teeth and use it to try to push the prey out. The ability to use available tools is reminiscent of the development of man when he first began to use tools.

1. These animals have well-developed intelligence.
2. When comparing the brains of a dolphin and a human, it was discovered that the brain of the former, unlike the human, has more convolutions and is larger in size.
3. Animals use both hemispheres in turn.
4. The organs of vision are underdeveloped.
5. Their unique hearing allows them to navigate perfectly.
6. The maximum speed that animals can develop is 50 km/h. However, it is only available to common dolphins.
7. In representatives of this genus, dermal regeneration occurs much faster than in humans. They are not afraid of infectious diseases.
8. The lungs take part in breathing. The organ with which dolphins grab air is called a blowhole.
9. The animal’s body is capable of producing a special substance, which in its mechanism of action is similar to morphine. Therefore, they practically do not feel pain.
10. By using taste buds they are able to distinguish tastes, for example, bitter, sweet and others.
11. Dolphins communicate using sound signals, of which there are approximately 14,000 varieties.
12. Scientists have experimentally proven that each newborn dolphin gets its own name and that they can recognize themselves in a mirror image.
13. Animals are extremely trainable.
14. To search for food, the most common dolphins of the genus Bottlenose dolphins use sea ​​sponge, putting it on the sharpest part of the muzzle and thus examining the bottom in search of prey. The sponge serves as protection to prevent injury from sharp rocks or reefs.
15. India has introduced a ban on keeping dolphins in captivity.
16. Residents of Japan and Denmark hunt them and use the meat for food.
17. In most countries, including Russia, these animals are kept in dolphinariums.

List all amazing abilities It is very difficult for dolphins, since every year people discover more and more new possibilities of these amazing inhabitants of nature.

Dolphins

Anyone who has ever met dolphins will forever remember their interaction with these unique and amazing animals. Affectionate, playful and quick-witted, they do not resemble anything dangerous predators, but that’s what 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 has managed to study humans much better. After all, it is much older than the modern one Homo Sapiens– its age is more than 70 million years. And by the way, the origin of dolphins, which explains the highly developed mental capacity This species is covered in 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 dolphins were once land dwellers has been known to scientists for quite a long time. They left the water, but over time, for an unknown reason, they returned to it again. Science is not yet able to explain exactly when and how this happened. Although, perhaps, when a person finds with these amazing creatures nature mutual language, they themselves will tell us their story, because their collective intelligence and ability to transfer knowledge from one individual to another suggests that dolphins may have their own story.

Recent studies by Australian scientists, which compared the DNA of humans and dolphins, make it possible to claim that they are our closest relatives. Perhaps they are simply a parallel branch of evolution that separated from the main species about a quarter of a million years ago.

And based on these studies, it was continued old legend- that dolphins are the descendants of the people who inhabited Atlantis. When this highly developed civilization sank to the bottom of the ocean, who knows what happened to its inhabitants? Maybe they turned into inhabitants of the depths of the sea, forever retaining the memory of their past life and love for man as 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 abandon it completely - after all, we have something in common, which means there must be a logical explanation for this fact.

BBC. Secrets of the sea depths. Magic world dolphins

Dolphins: relatives or ancestors of humanity?

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

And testing for the level of mental development showed amazing results - dolphins scored only 19 points less than 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.

Thanks largely 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 to 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 minds are so similar to those of humans.

All this data involuntarily 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 modern people, first emerging from the water onto land to give birth to a new life, and then going back to the seabed to enable man to follow his own path of development.

This assumption is also supported by interesting facts about how dolphins wildlife save a person. Many seafarers who were shipwrecked or simply had the misfortune of encountering sharks tell how dolphins spent hours driving hungry sharks away from them, preventing them from approaching a person, and helping them swim to the saving shore. This attitude is typical for dolphins in relation to their own offspring - perhaps they perceive humans as their cubs in trouble?

Another scientifically established fact that speaks in favor of the unconditional superiority of dolphins over other representatives 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 “husband” for life. They live in real families - with children and the elderly, caring for relatives who are weak and defenseless due to age or health.

The absence of polygamy, typical of the animal world, suggests that dolphins are at a higher level 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 entity human nature– after all, they, our closest relatives, live in strong families.

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

Are the abilities of dolphins miracles 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 people learn more and more about what these mysterious sea inhabitants know and can do.
• First of all, their fine hearing is unique to all living nature. Having gone to live in the water column for the second time, the dolphins were faced with the fact that visibility in it was much lower than in the air. But having adapted quickly enough, they became the owners of more than just fine hearing. After all, in order to perfectly navigate in water over long distances, it is not enough just to be able to transmit sound, you need to be able to make those objects “sound” for which this is unusual.
• To do this, dolphins use a sound wave - a short click they make, which, having reached any obstacle, returns under water in the form of a kind of echo. This location pulse propagates in water at a speed of up to one and a half thousand 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, determine the distance to the expected obstacle.
• At the same time, one dolphin, having received similar information about an approaching obstacle or a large school of fish within reach, transmits this data to its fellows using special sound signals, and over fairly long distances. Moreover, each dolphin in a pod is able to distinguish all its members by characteristic vocal intonations, and each of them has its own name. During the experiments, it was found that the level of language development allows one dolphin to use sounds to explain to its fellows what actions need to be performed to get 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, nothing will happen.
• At the same time, they also have very developed abilities for onomatopoeia - 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 in a sound recording where the real sound is and where the “speech” of a dolphin is. Training to copy 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 analytical abilities, then here dolphins have left far behind all animal world planets. Thus, they easily distinguish three-dimensional forms from flat ones, distinguish a huge range of colors (only blue causes difficulty), and can easily determine where to look for a particular object.
• A very interesting experiment was conducted with dolphins by Soviet scientists. The animal was shown the ball and then hidden behind a screen. When the screen opened, two objects appeared behind it - a voluminous box and a round flat shield. When the rope tied to them was pulled, the ball fell into the pool. Almost all animals would pay attention to round shape shield and would begin to look for the ball in it, not paying attention to the volume. But not a single dolphin made a mistake - they always correctly chose the box 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, capable of repeating even the most complex tasks after their trainer. They are also good teachers who can teach a sequence of actions or a difficult trick to their relatives. Moreover, the rest of the dolphins in the school do not adopt new knowledge under the influence of hierarchical requirements or under coercion - they do this out of curiosity and love for everything new. A lot of cases have been recorded where a member of a pod who had lived for a certain time in a dolphinarium could then teach everything he had learned there to his fellow tribesmen.

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 posed by the inhabitants of the deep sea. So, while exploring new territories, they put a sea sponge on their nose, which protects them from the electrical discharges of stingrays or the burning stings of poisonous jellyfish.
• Dolphins are also capable of experiencing completely human feelings of jealousy, resentment, and love. Moreover, they will express them quite accessible to humans. For example, a young female, feeling jealous of a new trainer or just a curious person (most often female), will try with all her might to push the “homewrecker” away from her partner, while accurately calculating the strength of her actions. She will not cause pain or injure a person, but she will definitely make it clear that the presence of this lady near her beloved is extremely undesirable.
• Neither aggression nor pain are applicable in matters of training dolphins - 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 the presence of long-term memory, capable of storing information for quite a long time.
• Well, perhaps the most amazing fact, which shows that the intelligence of dolphins is very close to that of humans, is their use in conditions natural environment habitat of labor tools. In order to remove 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 “improvised” 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. And a person will learn navigation, the ability to find out the weather and escape from sea predators not from boring textbooks, but from living experts in the secrets of the underwater kingdom.