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December 1, 2006

Strange But True!

Q. What's a most surprising thing dolphins do when they get together? People do it too, behind each other's back, as do magazines and TV shows to the point where it may bring down a president or a prime minister. If you thought dolphins above this sort of behavior, think again. So what are the Flippers of the world up to?

A. They gossip, reports a team of Scottish marine biologists. Amazingly, each bottlenose dolphin identifies itself with a unique series of clicks and whistles along the lines of Woo-woo-wee-wee or even Woo-woo-wee-woo-wee-woo, says Bruno Maddox in “Discover.” This has long been known, but what the researchers uncovered is that two clicking and whistling bottlenecks will at times use the name of a third dolphin when it is not present. “For those of us who've been led to believe dolphins are a higher order of being — honorable and enlightened, Gandhis with blowholes — their gossiping came as something of a blow to the stomach.”


 
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