Dolphins are really smart, scientists say — and if they had thumbs, we’d be in trouble
Humans aren’t the only creatures with sophisticated, advanced societies.
Dolphins and whales aren’t that all that far behind humans in that regard, it turns out — and a new study published this week in Nature Ecology & Evolution links the complexity of dolphins’ and whales’ community structures with their brain size.
Those aquatic mammals have deep relationships with each other, live in close-knit communities and can even talk to one another — sometimes in different dialects — the new study found. If that sounds familiar, that’s because they operate a lot like we do.
But luckily for us, our underwater competition lacks the anatomical asset that’s given humans the upper hand on the planet.
“Unfortunately, they won’t ever mimic our great metropolises and technologies because they didn’t evolve opposable thumbs,” said Dr. Susanne Shultz, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Manchester who coauthored the study.
Shultz and the rest of the researchers who wrote the study looked at 90 different species of dolphins, whales and porpoises. What they discovered was “overwhelming evidence” that those sea creatures display advanced behavioral traits that are remarkably similar to those that define human cultures. And the brain size of those underwater creatures even “predicts the breadth of social and cultural behaviors” — the larger the brain, the more advanced the society.
The researchers suggest that large brains evolve, whether on land or in the sea, because individual animals living in complex societies need more brainpower to navigate social environments full of different information and behaviors that need to be analyzed.
“This research isn’t just about looking at the intelligence of whales and dolphins, it also has important anthropological ramifications as well,” said Dr. Michael Muthukrishna, an economic psychology professor at the London School of Economics who co-authored the study. “In order to move toward a more general theory of human behavior, we need to understand what makes humans so different from other animals.”
The study showed just how many behaviors humans exhibit that dolphins and whales exhibit as well: They look after the children of others in their communities, they play, they use tools, they hunt together and they learn from each other.
Dolphins’ and whales’ communication skills are exceptional, too.
“They have signature whistles. They actually have names for each other,” Muthukrishna told Newsweek.
And for better or for worse, they might even be as petty as we are: Dolphins produce signature whistles when other dolphins aren’t there — a potential indication that the animals are gossiping, researchers told the Guardian.
What if dolphins are gossiping about us behind our backs? Well, at least we can take comfort knowing they don’t have the thumbs to do anything about it.
This story was originally published October 19, 2017 at 9:26 PM with the headline "Dolphins are really smart, scientists say — and if they had thumbs, we’d be in trouble."