Sentences with phrase «signature whistles»

Signature whistles of male alliance partners also tend to become more alike over time.

Our results clearly show that dolphins provide identity information through signature whistles when they encounter other groups at sea.

A new study shows that dolphins use their own unique calls, known as signature whistles, to introduce themselves to others when meeting at sea.

It was already known that dolphins are taught signature whistles by their mothers, but their function was not entirely clear.

If signature whistles are the main vehicle to transmit identity information, then dolphins should exchange these whistles in contexts where groups or individuals join.

Until recently, researchers could study signature whistles only in captive animals — raising the question of whether the whistle developed in response to capture, isolation, or stress.

We used passive acoustic localization during focal boat follows to observe signature whistle use in the wild.

In this study, we demonstrated that whistle copying does not occur when animals encounter each other initially, which is what we would predict if copied signature whistles are used to address specific individuals.

The dolphins used signature whistles when meeting up with another group, Quick and Janik report online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. What's more, they gave the distinctive whistle only if they actually mingled with the other dolphins.

«Exchanging signature whistles may be one way they manage these interactions.»

All pairs of animals that produced signature whistle copies were close associates, with only one pair having a low CoA for the year prior to recording.

The copied whistles changed frequency in the same way as real signature whistles, but either started from a higher frequency or didn't last as long, suggesting Dave was not merely imitating Alan.

Understanding how dolphins use signature whistles opens up many exciting research possibilities, according to Sayigh.

Marine biologists Vincent Janik and Nicola Quick of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom were focusing on signature whistles as a way of understanding how dolphins communicate in the natural world.

In captivity, dolphins use such signature whistles while separated from the rest of their group.

It was already known that dolphins are taught signature whistles by their mothers, but their function was not entirely clear (and still isn't, but we're getting closer to cracking that nut).

The study is publicly accessible without a pay subscription, so if you're curious, check it out: Vocal copying of individually distinctive signature whistles in bottlenose dolphins.

A 2004 study showed that a group of free - swimming bottlenose dolphins in Florida did indeed use signature whistles.

Justin Gregg of the Dolphin Communication Project in Old Mystic, Connecticut, remains cautious, and points out that the dolphins may copy the signature whistles simply because they hear them a lot.

Of these, 10 were seen copying each other's signature whistles, which the dolphins make to identify themselves to each other.

To be sure that they are using the whistles to refer to a specific individual, researchers would need to show that dolphins responded when their signature whistle was copied, he says.

Later spectrogram analysis confirmed they were signature whistles, produced through tissue vibrations near the blowhole.

They use «signature whistles,» high - pitched, individualized calls, which function like human names.

These signature whistles, as they are called, were first noted some 30 years ago.

Researchers record a dolphin's voice — its signature whistle — by attaching a suction - cup microphone to the sound - producing «melon» on the animal's forehead between the beak and blowhole.

They clarified dolphins» feeding patterns (by analyzing stomach contents); showed a connection between high levels of chlorinated hydrocarbons in dolphins» blood and immune - system dysfunction; learned how dolphins interact with increasing boat traffic; did field tests to see if calves responded to their mothers» signature whistles (they did); and used dna analysis to determine dolphin social structure.

Even more intriguing was that only one member of each group gave the signature whistle.

What if they use a signature whistle to refer to a «third party» or a dolphin that isn't there?»

«We know dolphins learn to copy each other's signature whistles.

The discovery that a dolphin can imitate the signature whistle of another offers a glimpse of how these marine mammals converse

A sequence analysis verified that most of the whistles used during joins were signature whistles.

Only 10 per cent of joins occurred without vocal exchanges, suggesting that signature whistles are the main vehicle to provide identity information.

However, from our study, it is now clear that signature whistles are a vehicle to negotiate approaches between groups of animals, as the exchanges occurred only during group encounters.

The data show that signature whistle exchanges are a significant part of a greeting sequence that allows dolphins to identify conspecifics when encountering them in the wild.

The same algorithm used to find tunes in music retrieval systems has been successfully applied in identifying the signature whistles of dolphins, affording a new time - saving device for research into the world of dolphin communication.

-LSB-...] We found no evidence for a deceptive function of signature whistle copies.

While most female calves» signature whistles are distinct from their mothers», males sometimes do sound like their mothers.

The signature whistles of the male calves in this study, however, did not resemble those of their mothers -LSB-...].

A new study showns that bottlenose dolphins could be using signature whistles to identify themselves and call out specific individuals, possibly making it the equivalent of names among humans.

Is it thought that there might not be a rigid procedure for how dolphins from different pods meet, but rather, whoever wants to say «hello» just calls out the signature whistle of the individual they are looking for.

In cases where dolphin pods joined and swam together, the researchers found, such meetings were preceded by one dolphin in the group producing a signature whistle and another dolphin in the second group answering.