Male dolphins make ‘best friends’ for years to come
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A new study has shown that male dolphins form decades of social bonds and cooperate with each other. They communicate in clicks, helping each other find females and fight competitors. Previously, this behavior had not been seen in animals.
“These dolphins have long-term stable alliances, and they have cross-group alliances. Alliances of unions of unions, ”said The Guardian Dr. Richard Connor, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and one of the paper’s lead authors.
“Prior to our study, cooperative alliances between groups were thought to be unique to humans,” the scientist elaborated.
The findings, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appear to support the “social brain” hypothesis: mammalian brains have become larger in animals that track their social interactions and networks. Humans and dolphins are the two animals with the largest brains in relation to body size.
“It’s not a coincidence,” says Connor.
Scientists studied the behavior of 202 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), including during the peak mating season from September to November.
The social structures of dolphins turned out to be mobile and complex. The researchers found alliances between two or three male dolphins – like best friends. These friends were in groups of up to 14 individuals. Together they helped each other to find females for and mating, helped to “steal” females from other dolphins, and also defended against any attempts to steal a lady from rivals.
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