Communication with cubs: even dolphins “talk like a baby”

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As an international research team wrote in the journal “Proceedings” of the US National Academy of Sciences (“Pnas”), dolphins also communicate with their offspring differently than adult animals. Accordingly, bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) change their characteristic whistles when communicating with their calves.

Baby talk, sometimes called baby talk or mother tongue, is the way people talk to a baby or toddler. According to research, a specific way of speaking can help with language acquisition, among other things. There is little evidence of similar behavior in animals, researchers working in the US, Italy, UK and Denmark write in Pnas.

In the case of dolphins, “baby talk” is indicated by alternating whistles. These whistles can differ greatly, sometimes due to distinct frequency adjustments. In this way, they partially resemble the function of human language. The authors of the study hypothesize that the special communication between mother dolphin and calf may serve to increase attention, form an emotional bond and support vocal learning in calves.

The bottlenose dolphin population in Sarasota Bay, a lagoon on the west coast of the US state of Florida, was studied by researchers led by Laela S. Sayigh. Dolphins were caught temporarily for this purpose. The mothers were then housed alternately with their calves or other adult animals. During the meetings, the calves and mothers whistled almost constantly. The researchers noticed that the mothers whistled with their calves at significantly higher maximum frequencies and with greater frequency deviations.

(SDA)

Source : Blick