Friday, January 27, 2012

Dolphins are multilingual

Dolphins are more intelligent than you thought. They are multilingual -- at least in their sleep, scientists have found.

A team at University of Rennes claims to have recorded captive dolphins at an acquatic park in France talking in their sleep in fact, the aquatic mammals have been found to be making whale-like noises, and not dolphin sounds.
In their study, the scientists focussed on five dolphins -- Peos, Mininos, Cecil, Teha, and Amtan -- who were born in captivity and have only ever heard whale sounds as recordings.
According to the scientists, if the sounds are confirmed to be "whale", it'll be the first known instance of dolphins remembering a particular noise and repeating it "later".
For their research, the team hung underwater microphones in the tank of the five dolphins who perform everyday at the French aquatic park Planete Sauvage.
The unusual noises -- which make up just one per cent of all the sounds recorded -- strongly resemble whale song and occur only during "rest periods"

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