The intelligence agency of dolphins never fails to perplex us less - flippered ally – and we ’re not just talking about thedolphin that stolea cleaning woman ’s iPad this week .
young enquiry has prove that dolphin “ sing ” to their unborn calf in their womb . dolphinfish practice “ signature tin whistle ” to distinguish and communicate with one another , much like we use names . Mother mahimahi have been observed perform a signature tune whistling for the baby in the months running up to the birth and up to two calendar week after .
This has been hit the books before , but this new research reckon into the rates of these tin whistle and if they changed after the parentage . Audra Ames , of the Marine Mammal Behavior and Cognition Lab at the University of Southern Mississippi , showed some of their findings at the annual American Psychological Association conference , Live Sciencereports .
" It ’s been theorise that this is part of an imprinting mental process , " Ames toldLive Scienceat the conference .
" We in reality do see that human babies develop a preference for their mother ’s vocalisation in the last trimester . We do n’t know if that ’s something that ’s go on here , but it could be something similar , ” she added .
They read 80 hour of audio – both two months before and after the birth – at a tank in Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo , California . The enclosure was home to a fuel pod of dolphinfish , include a 9 - year - old female that was pregnant with a calf , later nominate Mira . They discovered the mother do a new whistle that intensified around the nascency and then begin to taper off over the months follow . They also found that other dolphin in the area remained quieter in this period , which they believe was a conscious elbow grease not to confuse the calfskin and to assure it “ does not form on the wrong signature tin whistle . ”
Additionally , as the female parent started to taper off her repeat , the other dolphins in the group begin to increase the rate of their own whistles . The mother ’s whistle for the calfskin in this early period also differed from the whistle other dolphins have . Who have it away , perhaps it ’s just a parent ’s pet - name for their kid .
