Wild Female Dolphin Inventor Teaches Other Dolphins Tool Use

[pameladlloyd]

Via itsallonething: Among Dolphins, Tool-Users Are Women - WSJ.com

This is really cool. A group of wild bottlenose dolphins living in Australia's Shark Bay have been found to use sponges to protect their noses while they dig in the sand hunting for fish. The researchers from Georgetown University who are studying the dolphins believe that this technique may be a recent invention made by a single female dolphin who subsequently taught this to her family. It seems that the female dolphins learn the technique much more easily than the males and that those who do learn the technique use it so frequently that no other species besides humans is believed to have a higher rate of tool use than this group of dolphins.

Comments

[eneit.livejournal.com]

it says an awful lot about me that as I was admiring the female dolphins cleverness (and wondering if the male dolphins never asked directions either) this paragraph got my full attention (and giggles)

Only one older male dolphin continued hunting with a sponge. "He would go get a sponge and do it privately," Dr. Mann says. "It was like he was cross-dressing in private -- an old man out there sponging by himself."

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was amusing. :D

[wild-heart.livejournal.com]

How typical for the females to immediately use what works.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I found myself idly thinking about macho dolphins, who wouldn't use the sponges because that would mean admitting they have tender noses. ;>