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 30 August 2008 15:31 BST

Dolphin conversations unveiled

Wednesday, 19 Dec 2007 12:03
Dolphins could communicate with each other through whistling
What dolphins could be saying to each other through the whistling noises they make has been unveiled by scientists.

A project in Australia has identified 200 different whistles and linked them to certain types of behaviour, the New Scientist reports.

Liz Hawkins of the Whale Research Centre at Southern Cross University in New South Wales, listened to groups of bottlenose dolphins living off the coast of Australia during a three-year study.

She recorded 1,647 whistles from 51 different pods of dolphins living in Byron Bay.

When dolphins were travelling 57 per cent of their whistles were 'sine' - rising and falling symmetrically.

When they were feeding or resting however, they made far fewer whistles of this type and instead communicated almost exclusively using flat-toned or rising-toned whistles.

Ms Hawkins identified a particularly flat-toned whistle when dolphins rode the waves created by her boat, which she says could be the equivalent of a child saying 'weee!'

And when dolphins were on their own from another group they emitted the same particular whistle, suggesting they were asking where the others were.

"This communication is highly complex, and it is contextual, so in a sense, it could be termed a language," Ms Hawkins told the New Scientist.
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