Talk:Cetacean intelligence

Dolphin aiding in cross-species birth?
The only citation I think anyone is going to find for this is in the National Enquirer. I recommend it be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.57.60.171 (talk) 04:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Number of layers in the neocortex
"The cetacean neocortex, on the other hand, has only five layers, and there is little differentiation of outer layers according to function. The neocortex of the cetacean brain has a highly developed layer I and VI"

Now is it 5 or 6? :) Layer VI (=6) can only be present if there are (at least) 6 of them. Matt Kovacs (talk) 18:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The Brains of Treeshrews
FYI, the article on Treeshrews says, as follows, "Treeshrews have a higher brain to body mass ratio than humans, though this is not uncommon for animals weighing less than a kilogram." If this is true, this necessarily means that dolphins do not have the highest brain-body ratio for non-humans (at issue in the "Brain size" section). However, the treeshrew article was not cited. Perhaps it would be better to say that dolphins have the highest brain-body ratio for an animal of a certain mass (perhaps, over one kilogram?). Of course, again, the issue of citation.Philolexica (talk) 01:55, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Suicidal dolphins?
Are dolphins intentionally causing their own death, (via mass strandings as in recent and not so recent news or otherwise)?


 * "Mass suicide of the whales" (actually delphinidae)


 * "In situations of great stress in captivity they have been known to commit suicide by starvation, battering against walls, or drowning." ( and also )

How can this behaviour be interpreted? Are they aware that cessation of life would mean cessation of physical (or existential) pain? Does it imply a consciousness level comparable to ours?


 * It seems very unlikely (from an evolutionary standpoint) that this behaviour could be genetically induced, and I know of no other animal capable of contraddicting so directly the survival instinct. --Michele Bini 21:15, 5 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it's quite similar to panic. From an evolutionary standpoint, since they're going to die anyway, they might as well do something they haven't done before, even something fatal. --Ihope127 6 July 2005 18:52 (UTC)

The shallow wedge of water at a beach acts as an acoustic absorber. It's likely that to sonar - odontocetes' primary sense - the beach looks like open water, since it doesn't provide the sound reflection that most barriers would. Psychologically, it's probably akin to a thirsty man pursuing a mirage deeper into the desert. Warren Dew 18:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If entire schools of dolphins beach themselves, regularly, through misinterpreting visual or sonic signals, then this surely must detract from any claim that the intelligence of dolphins is comparable to that of humans. Humans learn and record signs of danger, and such becomes important communal knowledge, transmitted orally within hunter-gatherer tribes, and then via writing in settled farming villages and towns. Myles325a (talk) 04:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It's different, if they see it as open water, then its akin to someone walking into a normal field, then suddenly falling into a chasm, which looked exactly like a normal field to them. they would all die, and be unable to learn. Everyone else would also die. other, isolated groups could also fall prey to it, as they may not be able to carry concepts in their noise. It's like a blind person tripping on a large rock and saying they're stupid for not seeing it. that would probably be original research though. Sliver Slave (talk) 23:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My original point was that humans would learn about these dangers and transmit that knowledge within their communities. They would also have some plan in place to rescue those individuals who did become trapped in this way. The fact that dolphins do not do this indicates that cetacean intelligence is comparable to that of other herd animals like cattle, and not with homo sapiens. I don't think that comparing dolphins with blind people, as opposed to being stupid really helps the argument that they are intelligent. The notion that they never learn because they all die is contrived and implausible. When large numbers of people go missing those remaining try to work out what happened and take steps to ensure it does not do so again. Myles325a (talk) 04:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I must refute the above claim that the behavior of beaching reflects upon the intelligence of cetaceans, putting their consciousness beneath that of humans. For example, panic in the human primate results in mobs of people trampling other people underfoot in order to meet their escape. Through much research of late due to the need to recognize whether military sonar causes panic-induced beaching and other negative impacts upon marine mammals, researchers keep coming to the same conclusion- beaching may be induced by sheer panic. Take for example that a wave of sonar will travel quite a large range without losing its deafening volume, so-to-speak. Perhaps pods could be observed which have recognized that putting their heads above water during training exercises may be further proof of the sonar cause of mass beaching, but for now, those studies are a great reference point if any have access. One good example of humans not learning from past mistakes? Living at the feet of volcanoes. It only takes a few generations to forget what has come before, even with our ability to record things that have come before, such as in the written word, or through oral stories, which, we have no idea whether oral stories are passing between mother and calf in cetacean songs, for we have yet to crack the whales' codes.--AmandaEP (talk) 13:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, if one want to REALLY believe that humans share this globe with another "intelligent" species, the cetaceans, then I suppose any evidence to the contrary is going to be explained away. Your example of humans living near volcanoes is an odd one. Volcano eruptions are often thousands of years apart. For example, Vesuvius hasn't exploded for two thousand years. And in many cases, the people don't have much choice where they live. I made a comment in the "Learning and Memory" section further down which adumbrated a design for an experiment to see if dolphins can "talk" in any way comparable to humans. What surprises me when I see people talking in a language I cannot understand, say a Chinese newsreader on our local ethnic TV channel, is the sheer pace and variety of sound. It is exactly OPPOSITE to the notion of mantras and singing, which repeat the same phrasing over and over. Human communication involves the transfer of knowledge by means of having a vocabulary of thousands of words, many of them abstract nouns, and a grammar to put those words together. The result sounds like no other animal, and must terrify wild animals when they see and hear it. I have wondered about what animals make of, say, two men sitting on a verandah and having a chat. They might think "These two are not fighting, not hunting, not mating, they don't seem to be warning of danger, or trying to signal their presence - why are they making than infernal racket that sounds nothing like song?" Of course, those humans are swapping information, and this means that repetition is minimised, not the reverse as it is with whale songs. That's just common sense really. If I ever see an animal warn another that a particular human is dangerous when that human is NOT THERE, then I will concede that some animals can communicate like humans do. In the meantime, I would just note that there is really NO evidence to show that cetaceans are more intelligent than goats or elephants or reindeer. They might play more actively, and make friends with people more readily, but this does not mean that they are specially endowed with brains. If that were true, the friendly village idiot would be brighter than the po-faced professor at a college. Myles325a (talk) 00:21, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

First let me say I am not an expert on cetacean intelligence. However, I do think I have something to add to the conversation: AmandaEP stated that "We have yet to crack the whales' codes." I must seriously question the idea that there is a code to break here, and that within this code, assuming it even exists, is anything remotely close to language as complex as human language. To Amanda, it seems there is a foregone conclusion that there is in fact a code to break. I find it hard to believe, with the extensive observation and study of some species of cetaceans, that if there is some code to crack, that it has not been. My guess would be that the communication of these species is no more complex than some of the more intelligent primates, and quite possibly far less complex. Additionally, we are not talking about a single blind person walking into a rock. We are instead talking about a group of animals, which as a group continue to beach themselves despite others in the group doing so. This is different than a situation where a person gets trampled by a crowd - the crowd harms the individual, not some outside threat. If there was an outside threat, the crowd was escaping it. This would only be similar if, while trying to escape being beached, the dolphins all swam back in the other direction, accidentally killing an individual in the process. This also doesn't seem to be a stampede like situation, unless there was another threat that was chasing the group of dolphins towards the shore. Instead this seems to be a species, so inept at communicating, that they cannot communicate individually, as each one finds itself in a situation where it is beached to the group that if the group continues they too will suffer a similar fate. This would be like a bunch of blind people, in a group, walking, and each falling off of the cliff, and despite the screams and warnings from those who fall or start to fall, the entire group continues to walk towards the precipice. Nlgambrel (talk) 02:40, 7 August 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nlgambrel (talk • contribs) 02:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)


 * It seems to me this protracted discussion says very little about whether dolphins are intelligent and a great about whether certain Wikipedia editors are. I have to wonder with Myles325a's "animals" "why [he is] making that infernal racket that sounds nothing like" rational argument. In any case, the "talk page" is to decide what should go in the article, not to test the capacity of your lungs. TheScotch (talk) 10:05, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

converting subjective "seems to" into objective fact
"they can breathe above water while sleeping." If you know anything about how this fact was discovered, please add it to the article. (Or is this just one of those urban legends like "ostriches put their head in the sand" ?) --DavidCary 04:11, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

http://whale.wheelock.edu/whalenet-stuff/sleeppage/ mentions "While sleeping, the bottlenose dolphin shuts down only half of its brain, along with the opposite eye. The other half of the brain ... watch[es] for predators, obstacles and ... signals when to rise to the surface for a fresh breath of air. After approximately two hours, the animal will reverse this process, resting the active side of the brain and awaking the rested half. This pattern is often called cat-napping."

Birth to adult brain ratio?
This article states that bottlenose have 42.5% of brain size when born whereas humans have 25%...however, what this really means is dolphins behavior is more instinct than learned. For example, the highly intelligent elephant has a brain ratio when born of 35%...which really surpasses dolphins, doesn't it? And as for the E.Q....only the Bottlenose has an EQ that high...Orca, considered to be the most intelligent have a very low EQ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.140.44 (talk) 23:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, if you think these brain ratios are good indicators of intelligence, then you have to accept that elephants are a good one third more intelligent than humans. And I am really dubious about the EQ assertions. Why would Orcas have a low EQ? I saw Free Willy, and he had an EQ higher than Obama's. Myles325a (talk) 04:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Non-Sequitir
"However, though [Dolphins learning to perform their own novel and original tricks] impressed researchers at the time, experiments by Neuringer(1992) and others have shown that other animals like pigeons and rats can likewise be trained for variability of response, which given time can result in apparently original behaviour. Whether there is a clear case for dolphins showing real creativity in this experiment is therefore questionable."

I hate to nit-pick, but this really needs to be elaborated on. It seems what is being said is:

"Dolphins have shown themselves to be capable of original behavior. Other animals like rats and pigeons have shown themselves to be capable of original behavior as well.  Therefore, it is questionable if dolphins are capable of original behavior."

This doesn't make a lot of sense. I realize that the reader is probably supposed to assume that rats and pigeons are not capable of "real creativity", but without explaining this, the paragraph in question doesn't flow logically. Secondarily, why is there the assumption that rats and pigeons are not capable of "real creativity"? Why would correlations in creative ability between dolphins and rats indicate that dolphins are not creative, as opposed to indicating that rats are creative?

EDIT: I think what they are saying is they are unsure of their own observations. They might be saying they have observed the same (or similar) behavior in rats and pidgeons, and are unsureof the indicated intelligence. Just a thought.

I know that this is an encyclopedic entry and not an essay, and by no means am I attempting to make a case for rat or pigeon creativity (although people who've owned pet rats and trained pigeons might be inclined to make such a case). But a statement which essentially says "dolphins appeared to be creative, until pigeons and rats were shown to also be creative, so now it's somewhat doubtful if dolphins are creative" just doesn't make any logical sense. It's as if the article were to say "Tom is smart. Dick once seemed to be almost as smart as Tom.  Now we know Harry also seems almost as smart as Tom.  Therefore, it is doubtful if Dick is nearly as smart as Tom."

This will leave many readers asking: "How the heck do you draw that conclusion?" It needs to be explained why Harry appearing to be smart makes Dick less intelligent. --Corvun 02:46, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * This is because terms like "intelligent" and "smart" are essentially relational. So if someone says "Dick is smart" and then it is shown that Tom and Harry can do the same things on the same tests as he can, then Dick's smartness means less. Of course, you can be a good post modernist and assert that it is the inalienable right of every living thing to be considered smart, from slime mould to humans, just as it is now asserted that every collection of humans in history has the right to be called a "civilization" even if they were naked paleolothic stone age tribes who had yet to discover fire. I think the original finding that pigeons and rats do well on these tests is quite plausible. The much overrated intelligence of cetaceans (and some other herd animals) is the result of romanticism run wild and without scientific discrimination. Dolphins CAN'T talk, think in the abstract, make future plans or do any of those things we associate with human intelligence. Yes, they ARE cute, and intelligent for animals, but they are not on our level. Myles325a (talk) 05:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Ocean Energy?
Is the claim that dolphins can harness 'ocean energy' through cavitation-induced cold fusion akin to the claim that there is an invisible green man standing in the corner of the room? I can't see him, but I have it on excellent authority that he is there.


 * A claim as wild as this needs a convincing citation, surely? Compared to the cold fusion claim, the suggestion that dolphins have a 'higher level of consciousness' (with a link to...quantum mechanics????) seems merely excentric.


 * This is a question (I changed it into a question mark). The only statement is that there is an invisible man, which is really not that weird if you think about it too much. So no, I doubt the claims are akin. >:-)


 * If you look outside of quantum mechanics and instead focus upon normal everyday physics, ocean energy in the form of "wave action" (popularly discussed as hydro-kinetics: "This Pike Research report reviews five main types of marine and hydrokinetic technologies: ocean wave, tidal stream, river hydrokinetic, ocean current and ocean thermal resources.") itself, and the gravitational force which causes tides, could be harnessed by cetaceans without mention of some "invisible green man" ever coming into play. Just pure physics (but obviously you'll need references for that which I do not know if they are declassified, if they even exist). A dolphin can quite easily ride, like a bird does air currents, water current. But following along with the idea of cavitation (and there is definitely more than one type of it), it is more likely a cause of mass-beaching due to its ability to negatively impact the body, rather than a cetacean's ability to harness it internally or otherwise. I'm not referring to cold fusion here, that claim seems absolutely absurd to me.--AmandaEP (talk) 13:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Communication
I'm moving the to-do list from the "Communication" paragraph to here, since it doesn't really belong in the article, and I've filled up some of that paragraph anyway.

Should be a sub section of communication abilities
 * sign language
 * echolocation
 * body language
 * some studies have made wild claims.
 * need to criticise methodology as well.

LjL 20:53, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, this article Title is Cetacean intelligence, but it only discusses dolphins.

Non-sequitor still needs clarification
I've moved this to the talk page until someone can explain this better. As it stands, it's a horrible logical fallacy.

"However, though this impressed researchers at the time, experiments by Neuringer(1992) and others have shown that other animals like pigeons and rats can likewise be trained for variability of response, which given time can result in apparently original behaviour. Whether there is a clear case for dolphins showing real creativity in this experiment is therefore questionable. Arguably the quality of the dolphins' response was far superior, but further research is required in this area to test this."

Now, in case my previous explanation was not clear enough, I'll walk y'all through this step-by-step:


 * "...experiments by Neuringer(1992) and others have shown that other animals like pigeons and rats can likewise be trained for variability of response, which given time can result in apparently original behaviour."

Okay, all's good. So not only are dolphins capable of creativity, but so are rats and pigeons. Got it.


 * "Whether there is a clear case for dolphins showing real creativity in this experiment is therefore questionable."

Huh? This is the part that throws me, and leaves me asking, "How the heck do you come to that conclusion?" It's completely illucid.

To be specific, these are the points that need to be explained:


 * If species A shows evidence of creativity, why should similar evidence of creativity found in species B and C cast doubt on the creativity of species A?


 * Is the reader supposed to assume that species B and C do not have creativity, and that the appearence of creativity in species A, if it is proven using a technique or test that indicates creativity in species B and C, is therefore a mere illusion?


 * If so, why is the reader supposed to make that assumption? What is this assumption based on?  Why, rather than being a case for rat and pigeon intelligence, would it be a case against cetacean intelligence?

If no one has an answer to this, then I suggest the phrasing of the paragraph in question be altered to point out these logical errors before its reintroduction into the article. --Corvun 14:58, July 19, 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I'd leave it simply as
 * "However, though this impressed researchers at the time, experiments by Neuringer(1992) and others have shown that other animals like pigeons and rats can likewise be trained for variability of response, which given time can result in apparently original behaviour. Arguably the quality of the dolphins' response was far superior, but further research is required in this area to test this."
 * This leaves it to the reader, in the Wikipedia spirit, to judge the implications on the definition of "creativity" and/or the importance of "creativity" as a factor in "intelligent" behavior, whatever that it. LjL 15:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd agree to that. Excellent suggestion, and much better than taking up space per my original suggestion by pointing out logical fallacies and making the article look like a talk page.  Might I also suggest:


 * ""However, though this impressed researchers at the time, experiments by Neuringer(1992) and others have shown that other animals like pigeons and rats can likewise be trained for variability of response, which given time can result in apparently original behaviour. Whether there is a clear case for dolphins showing a degree creativity closer to humans than to these other species is therefore questionable. Arguably the quality of the dolphins' response was far superior, but further research is required in this area to test this."


 * Either way is fine with me, really. Though, neutralizing the sentence like this makes it seem a bit superfluous, so your suggestion is probably the better of the two.  --Corvun 23:54, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Further contradictions
This article seems to be full of non sequiturs along the lines of the above example. It goes out its way to cast doubt on brain mass as co-relating to intelligence and in the same breath claims "if dolphins were equipped with brains notably smaller than those of humans, it would make a powerful case against their having intelligence." Which is it? Marskell 09:14, 20 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Personally, I think it's a symptom of the over-all problem, which is that articles like these have a tendency to degrade into one person adding a pro- to the last peron's con- and vise-versa until the article ends up looking like a talk page. This has happened here before.  Then someone like me comes along who simply wants to know how cetaceans compare to other mammals, or possibly even to the alarmingly intelligent corvids, and can't find any genuinely useful information because the whole thing looks like a fight broke out between people who want to believe that dolphins are part of some super-intelligent Atlantean race and skeptics who are trying to "debunk New Age nonsense".


 * If you're looking for a Neutral Point of View, you probably won't find it here. It looks like this article is eternally doomed to be two opposing points of view constantly fighting for dominance.  It sucks, it's depressing, but it doesn't look like it's going to get any better.  --Corvun 09:40, August 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * Don't despair. Surgery sometimes works wonders. I think I'll have a go at this one later today or tomorrow. Just finished a good, recent book which discusses dolphin (and chimp) intelligence in terms of orders of intentionality; I'll look at the bibliography.


 * The problem here (and not just here) is that attempts at appropriate qualification turn into temporizing and contradictions. "The relationship between brain mass and intelligence is a shaky one, at best." That's not truly really. Brain mass is crude indicator of intelligence but it is an indicator none the less. Organisms don't waste metabolized resources on over-sized organs for no reason. I actually came here because I was thinking of adding a Cephalopod intelligence article and of course their large brains are rightly viewed as an intelligence marker. Marskell 12:11, 20 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Very cool. An article on Cephalopod intelligence would be truly awesome!


 * Brain mass is definitely an indicator of intelligence, and like you say, a crude one. Birds like crows and parrots, for example, are a lot more intelligent than their encephalization ratio would seem to indicate, at least when compared to mammals, so by this it may seem that encephalization is a poor indicator of intelligence, but it works just fine when comparing birds to other birds and mammals to other mammals.  (I wouldn't be surprised if the higher intelligence relative to brain mass of birds is just a side effect of having evolved a more efficient nervous system to aid them in powered flight, which requires more exacting control of their muscles.  This would give them the unique advantage of being able to develop much higher intelligence without costing them as much brain mass as a mammal or non-avian reptile.  But I don't know what the current theories are on avian intelligence, so I could easily be wrong.)  And there's always the issue of what 'intelligence' is, and the fact that other species could seem surprisingly intelligent in certain areas at the cost of being counter-intuitively unintelligent in other areas -- for example birds seem very intelligent when it comes to language and have an amazing sense of aesthetics, but if one expects that they be proportionately advanced in other areas, one would likely be very disappointed by their problem-solving skills.  So judging the intelligence of any species by the standards of humans might be a fundamentally flawed approach, as humans themselves could be lacking in certain areas that we haven't even thought to factor in.  I came to this page because I was interested in seeing if recent research into Cetacean intelligence had reached a rough idea of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Cetacean mind, but it looks like this is still a long way from happening, and the arguing between the two extreme POVs is probably hindering productive research more than helping it. --Corvun 01:15, August 21, 2005 (UTC)


 * I must agree that this lean towards brain-mass as relative to intelligence is a very old hallmark and has been refuted over the past two decades in many different species. One group of animals in particular, the Aves (birds), have had, by Cornell University, their entire cerebral cortex renamed due to the realization that birds are of higher intelligence than previously known. Hence, the old phrase "bird brained" does not mean exactly what it once did. Something to keep in mind. It may just be, as with the case of birds, that our limited ability to recognize intelligence due to our need to use ourselves as the comparator, and our concept that human intelligence is the highest form of intelligence as opposed to one form of intelligence, may inhibit our ability to even recognize what sentience truly is.--AmandaEP (talk) 13:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The connection between brain mass and intelligence is absolute rubbish when compared to the connection between the density of neurons (and the total number of neurons) in the brain and intelligence. Using the mass of the brain to measure intelligence is so crude of a measure that it is not even worth using when knowledge about the density and number of neurons is known.  If we accept the assumption that brain mass and intelligence are connected in any useful way then it begs two immediate questions: 1) why are none (or very few) of the thousands of species with brains larger than humans less intelligent than humans?  (What about all the dinosaurs, while we're at it) 2) If the connection applied to humans, then human men as a whole would be much more intelligent than human women.  The answer is that both questions are non-sense because the density of neurons in the brain (and the total number) is all that matters.  And humans have the highest number and density of neurons of any animal anywhere.  The second closest is the chimpanzee with a brain only half as dense (and half the size).  And human women (on average) have denser neural networks than human men, so despite the smaller size of women's heads, women are as intelligent as men.  The idea that brain size is a measure of intelligence as too many exceptions to be useful, and is especially useless when better measures are available.  The Wikipedia is cheapened by the statement that brain size is a useful measure of intelligence.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.41.225 (talk) 05:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Learning and memory
Removed this section until these points can be expanded. I know all pages are works in progress but notes-to-self and others and talking points shouldn't be on the main page.

Learning and memory

''Should be a section on learning skills. Scientific tests relevant to:''
 * Learning tricks - dolphins have been taught extremely complicated tricks.
 * Lying and subterfuge - there are some studies which suggest ability to use subterfuge. Dolphin training the trainer suggestions
 * Learning to learn - there was a study on the ability to learn that a variable response was required to get a reward. Did similar study on humans and compared.
 * Long and short term memory
 * Ability to abstract
 * Need to criticise the methodology of these studies Marskell 15:42, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Have any studies been done on dolphin cognition? I mean, show a dolphin a square, transmit "square" in ultrasound, then show a circle, transmit "square" in ultrasound, & see what the dolphin responds? (Yeh, it's thinking, "What's human for, 'You're stupid'?") Trekphiler 00:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it wouldn't be thinking "You're stupid" if it was getting fed on the basis of success in doing those tests. A while ago I proposed a test for testing how advanced dolphin communication might be. Essentially, the set up was with 2 dolphins working together to get a meal for the both of them. Dolphin 1 is allowed to swim into an enclosure which has on its wall different symbols, like seaweed, crabs etc. One of these has a light flashing, and the dolphin has been taught that if it presses its nose on this symbol, fish ready to eat will be dropped into the pool. Later in the experiment, the dolphin is prevented from pressing the symbol. It has to leave the pool, and only the other dolphin can enter. But the other dolphin is not shown the flashing light. The first dolphin must tell the second dolphin the correct symbol to press, and it must do this while they are both outside the enclosure. Failure to press the correct symbol on the first attempt means they cannot get the gift fish. This means that the dolphins must communicate abstract information one to the other, like "the correct symbol is the whale - press that one". I wonder if anything like that has ever been done. Myles325a (talk) 05:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

NPOV: US Navy
Neutral point of view is questionable on comments on the US Navy. Ideally someone should research public knowledge on this topic, to see if it is directly relevant to "cetacean intelligence".

I suspect that the Navy primarily conducts sensory and physiological research, in addition to training for deployment-related purposes such as mine tagging. However none of these topics are relevant to "intelligence".

The existing text explictly uses terms such as "allegedly" and "unsubstantiated". Therefore the specific comments covered by these descriptors are hearsay, and not encyclopedic with NPOV.

Recommend deleting all of these references, unless information obviously relevant to cetacean intelligence can be found, and written with NPOV. Santaduck 08:24, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Research Difficulties
Continuing with the discussion on NPOV/US Navy above, the entire section resides in a section called ''Research Difficulties'. IMHO this entire section is rather inaccurate, or perhaps misleading through fault of not being specific.

In full, the text reads: Research difficulties

''Knowledge about the capabilities of the dolphin brain is limited because of major research difficulties. Research of cetacean behavior in the wild is among the most expensive and difficult to carry out, owing to the nature of the environment they inhabit. There have therefore been relatively few scientific studies of dolphins in the wild, and most direct observations are anecdotal. Studies based on captive dolphins have limits because it is not clear how natural their behaviour is under those conditions.''

''In addition, the United States Navy has allegedly carried out a substantial amount of research which has not been put in the public domain. The U.S. Navy does acknowledge that its dolphin program has trained dolphins to search and tag mines and warn of divers approaching installations. Rumours circulate about less benign uses, but these are unsubstantiated.''

Some comments:
 * What is the use of having a section on "research difficulties". In other words, what does the content illuminate about the parent topic, which is cetacean intelligence?  More useful might be a categorical listing of the broad types of research methodologies or paradigms, and their typical aims, as well as any interactions between these methodologies.  Also useful might be why dolphins (in particular Atlantic Bottlenosed) were chosen for intelligence research in the first place (large brain, fissured brain, behavioral complexity/plasticity in wild, social complexity in wild, relatively abundantly available species, social behavior in relatively small groups that can be displaced to captive situations and even human animal trainers, social differences between pacific vs. atlantic bottlenosed).


 * The comment on expense is not accurate, as it makes no relative comparisons with other types of reseach. For example research on sperm whales is more expensive.  Research on bottlenose dolphins in shallow water areas (e.g. sarasota, bahamas) is likely less expensive than open ocean research.  Specifically, research on the intelligence of certain species other than bottlenose dolphins is impractical for many reasons, for example social issues (spinner dolphins), rarity (river dolphins), or issues of expense and practicality (e.g. no one studies the cognition of blue whales!).  In comparison, research with bottlenosed dolphins is quite economical and practical, which is exactly why it is one of the most commonly-researched cetacean species.  However, if an article on expense were justified, then it should instead provide verifiable evidence such as the cost of keeping the animals: feed, veterinary care, and a salt-water environment (which for example is much more expensive in an inland area such as The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas than an area adjacent to the ocean where salt water may simply be pumped in).  Also there is the cost of doing the research: faculty costs, grants, graduate students, university overhead, equipment, staff, and other such details which probably do not merit a wikipedia entry specific to dolphin research.


 * The comment about research in the laboratory is also misleading. Research in the lab and in the wild may have similar, or very different aims.  Often, there is interplay between the two (such as research on synchronous behavior, creativity, and language/signature whistles, echolocation).  Some types of research are nearly impossible to do in the wild ( for example echolocation ), whereas others are impossible in the captive situation (broad social patterns of fission/fusion society).  "Accuracy" to the natural situation is an issue which may be raised, but by no means is universally relevant, nor universally a measure of the research's validity. Calling all field research "anecdotal" is recklessly inaccurate.

Will be deleting the entry for now.Santaduck 07:28, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Communication cleanup
Began preliminary cleanup in communication area. Some gross errors were here, such as the length of echolocative pulses are a 'fraction of a millisecond' in length, which is incorrect by perhaps 3 orders of magnitude. Also removed significant text which implied that the general consensus is that echolocation is the primary communicative modality-- In fact this notion seems to be peppered throughout this article (see also refs by Jerison elsewhere in this artice) with undue encyclopedic emphasis given to what is explicitly noted to be speculation. Also removed speculation on Lilly-esque notions that there might be a full-blown human-equiavelent language "out there", although I didn't have time to check the article (with Russian coauthors), so I simply moved the reference to the overall article's reference section. Retained the information on the studies of Xitco and Herman for now, although these refs had initially been tagged onto the end of comments on echolocation, comments that have now been removed-- however the acoustic spotlight, as well as visually-mediated pointing are definitely communicative issues. I also reordered the article so that the click/whistle distinction begins the communication section, and added a few mentions of specific species, e.g. orca, bottlenosed. I retained earlier rough notes on sig whistles, but these need significant cleanup and expansion, as well as mentioning critique from (academic-source) skeptics of the sig whistle hypothesis.

All in all, this section is still unsuitable. I spent perhaps 10 min here, but the visual communication mode is really undeveloped, and information on well-researched species such as spinners, white-sided, spotted, orca, beluga, etc. should receive more attention.

Entire article outside of communication also requires huge expansion and cleanup, especially the comparative cognition area. The references and external links should also be re-evaluated and completely redone, to reflect academic rather than popular sources.

More NPOV
URL from author K. LeVasseur removed from External Links section, despite added note that the article was written in a "scientific manner," which served as a flag that NPOV or encyclopedic value might actually be an issue. Article has little direct academic relevance to the topic of "cetacean intelligence", and the author is most well known as an anti-captivity activist rather than a cetacean researcher. Details of his arrest and conviction for which he is most well known in the late 70s are available. I Googled one example here:. A news article on his continued activism and employment in the transit industry is available here:. Note: have not systematically gone through all other external links entries for encyclopedic reference and NPOV. These external references should be cleaned up in general, and categorized, as someone has already done for "self-awareness" references.

I am K. LeVasseur (aka Cetaman) and I am concerned that there is no signature on this threat (above and beyond the points made in this thread). Problems may be due to my lack of familiarity with this protocol. Cetaman (talk) 22:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Who ever made the upper most post in -More NPOV- has one week to notice that I am taking exception to the above comments because of Wiki Rules and in the interest of discussion. Next weekend, I will delete this entire thread because your comments are unscientific and opinionated and you will be challenged in your future edits. Cetaman (talk) 05:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Unscientific and opinionated seems to be exactly what you are being accused of, with information to back that up. Look, I am not exactly for keeping dolphins in captivity, especially when it comes to entertainment purposes. However, I am glad that you didn't succeed in getting the comment deleted, as it just doesn't seem fair that the person who is being called into question academically could delete a comment of such a nature, especially one only visible through talk. Furthermore, the information that was included in the so called "scientific" article that LeVasseur wrote surely has actual academic sources for it to actually be of any real value here, and perhaps rather than citing an article written by a school bus driver/activist, it would be far wiser to use the sources LeVasseur cited in the allegedly "scientific" article, if it was in fact based on science and not opinion or conjecture of a non-neutral, non-scientific nature. If indeed the article had real scientific information, surely it must be available elsewhere. First and for most, wikipedia should be a reliable source, not a battleground between viewpoints or a place that holds neutrality above all else, meaning non-accurate information would need to be included to keep neutrality. Sometimes there is correct and incorrect information. If you do in fact, have published, peer-reviewed, scientific information to include K. LeVasseur a.k.a. Ceteman, I suggest you reference the actual research, rather than your own article, and if somebody else cited you, I would suggest you fix that by citing your sources, rather than attempt to keep your article as a reference. It would increase the integrity of the article to do so, and if there are no sources to cite, I suggest you find some other wheel to grind your axe upon, or at least find some legitimate sources of information to reference. Having read this wikipedia entry as an attempt to learn more about the topic, I really don't like the idea that a source is editing the article or talk, nor do I like that the source is an activist rather than an academic. Perhaps I would feel better knowing that an it was an academic source was contributing and editing an entry/talk, but it seems to me to be quite improper for a non-academic source to be doing so. Nlgambrel (talk) 03:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, how is it a threat to say that a non-academic article shouldn't be used? Or if it is to be used, how is it wrong to point out that the person may not be coming from an academic or neutral point of view? You really come across as trying to abuse the system in order to ensure that non-academic sources remain.Nlgambrel (talk) 03:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Social complexity
Hello, I am a little skeptical of the statement, "It is notable that second-order alliances in bottlenose dolphins are the most hierarchically complex social structure observed in the animal kingdom, excluding the human species." To me it appears that there are many animals with arguably more complex social structures than bottlenose dolphin secound order alliances. What about ant and bees and termite. Ants have queens, multiple types of worker, soldiers, young, this seems more complex on some levels to me. Or chimpanzees, they can form similarly sized complex alliances. I have added 'arguably one of'. Without references the original statement is too strong. Nicolharper 18:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know who added it, but I'll help look for a cite. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 21:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Dolphin Names
I just saw an article,, which talks about how dolphins actually refer to each other by names. Does somebody want to say more about that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by PhoenixSeraph (talk • contribs) 20:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * New Scientist and others are covering the story, but I can't find the journal article as of yet. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 21:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * If you need access to the article once it's published (it hasn't been yet, only advance notice went out to the media), let me know, I have access to the online abstracts and articles. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 23:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I've removed a recently-added section ("Use of names") about this, which read like the following:
 * As of 2006, scientists have observed many dolphins using what could only be described as a "name" for another dolphin. Using variances in pitch and frequency, dolphins have been observed directing communication at specific individuals and third and fourth parties.

I'm not sure how this is different from signature whistles, which are already talked about in the article. If there is a difference, please re-add and reference. LjL 21:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Cerebral cortex--40% bigger than humans?
Absolute or relative to brain/body size proportion?

Alternative explanation for brain size
Paul Manger of Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand has recently published a very widely publicised article on this subject (peer reviewed), in the Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (An examination of cetacean brain structure with a novel hypothesis correlating thermogenesis to the evolution of a big brain). Basically, through a study of cetacean brain structure, he's been able to determine that the main component is "glia", which is used primarily to produce heat and (in this case) maintain the brain's temperature in a cold water environment. The main thrust of his study is that the brain size of water dwelling warm blooded creatures is not so much determined by intelligence, but simple insulation. OzoneO 14:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

This probably does not change one way or another the aspect of it being a sign of intelligence or not, however, it is worth noting that the vast majority of cells in the human brain are also technically glia, as glial cells make up much of the framework for the shape of a brain as well as perform almost all of the support and maintenance of the neurons themselves, and DO have limited signal firing capacity with neurotransmitters(however, this should not be overestimated, limited is the operative word here, they do not have very broad capabilities of firing, just some minor ones(mostly weak, short-distance fires, as far as we know)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.84.80.104 (talk) 05:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

A bit of research would have shown that it does change, quite substantially, the idea of size as an aspect of intelligence. What Prof. Manger found was that “Dolphins have a superabundance of glia and very few neurons… The dolphin’s brain is not made for information processing it is designed to counter the thermal challenges of being a mammal in water,”. I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion on this. Unless his (peer reviewed) research has been shown to be faulty, this deserves at least a mention on the main page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.215.3.187 (talk) 15:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree with the idea that this should be included. It is peer-reviewed, and seemingly accurate information, that should be included. It has implications, regardless of the idea of size, as it describes the density of neurons in the brain, which does have implications for intelligence. When I read the article, I was surprised not to see this referenced, especially when an image comparing the size of the brain is used in the entry, additionally, due to the discussion of "spindle neurons" I feel that this has a relevant place in the article.Nlgambrel (talk) 03:17, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

IQ isn't same as EQ
Dolphin tend to do badly in problem solving test which is better indication of intelligence. You might notice that almost all the evidences presented as indication of dolphin intelligence is to do with its social aspect (such as recognising oneself in the mirror). Sure, they are very social and friendly to human. This shouldn't be confused with intelligence. I notice the same cultural bias in the West where dogs are considered intelligent simply because they can do tricks and are good pet. This kind of elementary errors shouldn't be included in encyclopedia. You might be suprised to learn that Octpus, for example, is extremly intelligent. Vapour

I don't mind that some people believe that intelligence="social skill" as opposed to intelligence="Abstract Problem Solving Skill". I do mind it when ideologue who hold the former view deliberately censor verified content supporting the later view. Vapour

Given the language and physical barriers between dolphins and humans there is a limit to how accurately we can test their problem solving ability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abuonfiglio (talk • contribs) 17:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above. It's silly to expect that we are yet in a position to even design 'abstract' tests for a dolphin. If you gave a human a test that was designed by an underwater species, then 90% of the race would likely fail the test.

Does this, then, mean that humans are incapable of abstract thinking? Of course not! It just means that humans aren't familiar with the environment. The same situation applies to dolphins, we'd have to specifically tailor a problem to their environment, and we can't really successfully do that without more study. We're not at the point where we can do that, yet.

So basing intelligence on abstract problem solving at this point for this reason is folly and incredibly unscientific.77.107.172.208 (talk) 08:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Dolphin, Chimpanzees, orangutangs
Is there any simple comparison of there intelligence that the ordinary person can understand.Muntuwandi 05:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Usually, problem solving test and observation of animal communication (animal language has been discredite) are two main field of researchers focus. This should not be confused with emphathic skill, which often translate to cuteness factor for laymans. And when refering to communciation skill in term of intelligence, it refer to ability to communciate more complex and abstract idea. It does not refer to physical ability to communicate. We know dolpine's biological skill of communication is impressive. But even bird can warn other birds when danger is near. Ability to coordinate pack activity by communicating "Danger! Danger!" or "Food! Food" or "Me Want Sex!" does not equal inteligence. There are many pack animal with low intelligence. Rather, it is the level of abstractness of information which matter. And most researcher would assume that ability to imagine and communicate abstract idea would be directly linked to abstract problem solving, which Dolphine in general do badly. I haven't read a single paper in which Dolphine done well in problem solving test. (Feel free to correct me on this.) If Dophine lovers can't accept that, that's too bad. Intelligence being ability to perceive (hence think and solve problem) abstractly is not at all controversial in zoology. And if animal is pack animal, then this ability is further manifest into sophisticated communication. It's the laymen and media who tried to fit science to their prejudice. No doubt that dolphine are emphathic hence loveable and cute, but they are basically Forest Gump. And remember, the whole idea of the film was that low IQ doesn't mean Forrest was less of a man, which challenge the basic premise of this controversy that animal should be ranked and treated differently in term of their intelligence. Vapour


 * Yes, wolves and foxes are demonstrably more intelligent than domesticated dogs and can slip locks on gates after seeing it done once, as well as remembering numerous strategies for winning food in the wild. How does pooch solve such problems? By looking soulfully up at Mumsy in that ever-so-cute, lop-eared way. Very engaging, very high EQ, but not to be confused with true problem-solving capabilities. Myles325a (talk) 04:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

If "looking soulfully up at Mumsy", as you put it in your ever-so-cute, lop-eared way, actually works for "pooch" and "pooch" knows it will, then his is clearly the more intelligent approach--for him. Doesn't say much for your own "problem-solving [capability]", though, does it? TheScotch (talk) 10:48, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

inteligence content dispute
If you look at the references offered up by both sides of this inteligence debate [|Not inteligent] and [| are inteligent] it would appear that the Not inteligent case is weak if it is just based on this reference. This is because the reference just has a speculation as to a reason as why the brains of the dophin is big without having to envoke intelegences. Whereas the are inteligent refernce refers to data measuring intelegence and quotes a journal article. Herman, L.M. (2002). Exploring the cognitive world of the bottlenosed dolphin. In M. Bekoff, C. Allen & G. Burghardt (Eds.), The cognitive animal: Empirical and theoretical perspectives on animal cognition (pp. 275–283). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Ttguy 06:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Nevertheless, I think that Manger's paper should be mentioned rather than ignored completely. It's appeared in a number of media outlets (at Reuters, for example).  If his case is weak (he suggests "dolphins have a superabundance of glia and very few neurons"), then refutations to his arguments should be mentioned.  It is possible that he's not saying that dolphins are necessarily dumb, but that other animals may be smarter than previously believed (here's an interesting article about that). Esn 06:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I have added an article regarding dolphin intelligence and elephants, who are said to be equals.The duskydolphin 04:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Elephant brain
Elephants have a brain size up to 5.4 kg compared to human's 1.5 kg brain. This image seems to be wildly inaccurate which shows an elephant brain only slightly larger than mine. I don't know about the other brains shown here, but I'm removing it from this article (the only one it appears in) until it's checked over. —Pengo 04:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The elephant brain size looks about right to me. In the image it looks about 50% wider and longer than the human brain. Assuming all the dimensions scale and the density is unchanged this gives 1.5kg.*1.5^3 = 5.06kg which is about correct for the elephant brain, given the amount of variation in individual brain sizes and errors in estimation. Nicolharper 09:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The above arguments suggest that the brains are in the same scale. The picture is from University of Wisconsin and Michigan State Comparative Mammalian Brain Collections and the National Museum of Health and Medicine, which I suspect is a good source. For these two reason I think that the picture is okay. Thanks for checking though and having such a sharp eye for potentially problematic details. I will replace the picture into the article if that is okay. Nicolharper 18:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Oops sorry. Didn't realise elephant brains were so convoluted either (and are denser than humans') Should have done my research better. —Pengo 14:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

New peer reviewed article
A scientific article was recently published on the cognition of cetaceans which greatly bolsters the theory that cetaceans are intelligent creatures. Much information can be added to this article. It can be found here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.214.104 (talk • contribs) 07:14, 9 July 2007

Second paragraph, referring to intelligence
Why is the IQ of the individuals believing in near-human levels of cetacean intelligence necessary in the article? Referring to the passage "...although it is believed by some humans possessing IQ's of 200 that dolphins and other cetaceans have an intelligence potential that is at least equal to humans of average intelligence (IQ 100)." Eleblanc (talk) 21:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Missource?
Article States : "However, many scientists now tend to rank dolphins about the level of elephants in "intelligence" tests and say that dolphins haven't shown any unusual talent with problem solving compared with the other animals classed with very high intelligence[10]."

Source States : "But others say that in our enthusiasm to anthropomorphize dolphins, we give them powers they just don't possess. A closer look suggests that much of the dolphin's large brain is taken up with echolocation and handling acoustical information -- processes at which they excel. But dolphins tend to rank at about the level of elephants in "intelligence" tests and haven't shown any unusual talent at problem solving."

It is from a site that is giving a lot of evidence to the contrary, they were simply reconizing the a different point of view. I have no clue where the "Many Scientists" comes from. Does anyone a different source (perhaps one of the many scientists?) - StarDolph (talk) 19:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Mad behaviour as a result of stress in non-human animals.
With ref to Michele Bini’s comment above, dolphins are NOT the only animals that engage in self-destructive behaviour when panic-stricken or in extreme pain. All the ‘higher mammals’ including horses, cats, dogs and apes can present with human-like symptoms of severe stress. Dogs which lose a much-loved master can show every sign of ‘nervous breakdown’ and clinical depression, both behaviorally and physically. Other mammals will go on rampages, chew their own fur and eat their own excrement, refuse food and howl incessantly. Apes will throw themselves against their cages. In a series of notorious but well-conducted experiments of the 1960s, researchers tormented dogs to the point where they not only had ‘breakdowns’ but showed every sign of having become permanently insane through terror and pain. These were ‘higher’ animals. I have no idea whether you can make a butterfly mad, or drive a snail to distraction. Myles325a (talk) 04:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Signature Whistles?
I've heard before that dolphins in particular have "signature whistles" - sort of a name for themselves. I don't have the opportunity (nor the eloquence to put it in words for the article) to do more research on this, but I think it might prove to be an interesting addition in regards to self-awareness. 74.211.30.145 (talk) 02:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

this is so fascinating. i am almost convinced that the bottlenose is smarter than homo sapiens. dolphins have a very, very complex language they teach their young, which we cannot understand. they have gangs, wars, gang rapes, politics, games, sports similar to soccer with underwater objects, creative courtship and flirting, respect for the most intelligent of the pack, sympathy for humans, awareness that humans must also breathe, sympathy for whales, they can do logic and play tic tac toe like games with humans, creative solutions for problems, they commit suicide when left no alternative, my god is there anything preventing us from thinking they are as smart as us now? 75.1.48.21 (talk) 23:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thesis?
I find that this article seems to read more as a thesis than anything else, this is due to it presenting an individual view coupled with inaccuracies, unmet citation requirements, NPOV, weasel words and so on. It seems to forego the merits of an encyclopaedic article in order to convince the reader of a singular outcome and it feels very anecdotal because of that.

Therefore, at least to me, I don't think it stands up to scrutiny when considered as an encyclopaedic article. It might make a decent Scientific paper but without the references and proper research to back it up, it's nothing more than a thesis, and I don't think Wikipedia is the place for a thesis.

I'd move for a deletion of this article, as the amount of factual information therein is not enough to allow a reader to draw their own conclusions or do their own research. If not a deletion then the article needs to be cut down and then cleaned up, adding only elements which meet encyclopaedic criteria.

94.193.119.106 (talk) 04:43, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Please raise specific examples that you feel requires work. Have you compared this entry to other encyclopedia entries on the same topic? Viriditas (talk) 05:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Added some template messages.
I mentioned before that I believe that this is thesis-like, after some research I found that this is grounds for a clean-up. I believe that it needs to be noted in a way that people can see before reading the article.

I will explain my rationale for each template message.

Cite Sources: There are many instances in the article where citations are not present, yet they should be in order for this to qualify as an article.

Weasel Words: I'm not a seasoned editor, so I won't go tampering with the article, but there is an instance of Weasel Words that should be removed.

Misleading: The difference between IQ and EQ is noteworthy, but the article writer does his best to lead the reader to believe that EQ is a completely fair and Scientifically factual measure of intelligence, it is not. This along with the missing citations leaves the article feeling somewhat intellectually dishonest.

Essay: I believe the article reads like an essay or thesis rather than an article, there isn't much there that's truly encyclopaedic, there are too many implications, not enough citations, and conclusions drawn by the article writer. I believe that these elements give the article an unencyclopaedic feel.

I feel that these are completely relevant with the current state of the article and I would protest their removal, I'd like the opinion of one of Wikipedia's main editors on this as I feel that there are issues with this article that are just being brushed over.93.97.227.130 (talk) 05:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, as before, you are asked to stop speaking in generalities that cannot be addressed and to to provide specific examples of problems that require attention. I will now revert your templating of the article until you fulfill this simple request. Viriditas (talk) 06:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If they're so smart...
If they're so smart, why don't they just jump over the tuna net? Readers of this article want to know. Chrisrus (talk) 18:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you being serious? C'mon... Greggydude (talk) 19:52, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Absolutely! They could easily jump over the tuna nets and escape, yet they don't seem to be able to figure it out.  Doesn't this beg some explanation to you?  One wouldn't expect a tuna to be able to figure it out, but dolphins are supposed to be smart enough to figure a simple thing like that out. It's like a dog or a goat that is tethered to a tree and winds himself around and around and can't seem to figure out that he just has to wind himself around the other way.  When you see that, you have to ask yourself how smart the animal is. Chrisrus (talk) 01:32, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I also think this kind of thing needs some comment. Problem solving is strongly affected by motivation.  I would have though that dolphins would be strongly motivated to escape from tuna nets yet they fail to solve this problem.  Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:44, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree totally. Cetaceans are probably no smarter than other herd mammals like elephants, goats and reindeer, and that is well below humans. They do NOT, as has often been asserted, have a complex language. If they did, they would communicate and store knowledge that would permit them to escape from tuna enclosures. In a thread above "Memory and Learning", I described a possible experiment which could demonstrate a dolphin's ability to communicate by language. Basically, it involves one dolphin having to convey some abstract piece of information to another dolphin so they can both earn a fish reward. One dolphin would have to say to another "When you swim into that cave, press the button with the whale picture on it. That will get us the fish". As far as I know, no such experiments have ever been done, and I don't think even the gooiest of New Age "thinkers" has ever proposed that it would work.


 * As for dolphins saving drowning humans and towing them to shore, I think that they just think the humans are having fun. The data only looks impressive because we cannot have the evidence presented by those whom the whales dragged AWAY from shore, as these of course, are dead. Myles325a (talk) 03:49, 21 August 2011 (UTC)


 * This is a fallacious argument as it expects greater-than-human intelligence. Essentially, this argument could be used (as I've mentioned before) to claim that 90% of the human race is no more intelligent than herd animals.


 * This is a nonsensical notion. Imagine if you placed a human in a box with no clear way out - but the roof is an illusion. Most people wouldn't be able to figure out or even realise that the roof IS an illusion.


 * You're expecting the dolphins to understand things outside of their natural environment. We're familiar with how one might escape nets because we've seen it from above, but to expect this from dolphins is farcical.


 * It's like expecting a human to escape from a fourth-dimensional trap. There's no intelligence involved in this argument, and why it's difficult for a dolphin to quickly figure out a solution to this particular problem is, I believe, painfully obvious.


 * Therefore, it is my belief that the above arguments are entirely, completely facetious. And I would urge they be treated as such.77.107.172.208 (talk) 08:21, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Table in the problem solving ability section
The table is just randomly there, without any indication of what the scores mean, where they came from, etc. There should be more information, or it should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.189.134.229 (talk) 06:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree completely. Given the length of time people had to respond the above comment, I think I will remove it right away. Fedor (talk) 08:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

It's done. I have pasted the table below for us to discuss. Reading the accompanying I suspect that it is possible that it came from MacPhail's book. However, this books dates from 1982 and a lot has been discussed on whale intelligence since. Adding this table even it is from MacPhail would give undue weight to a single opinion. Someone should research this issue and rewrite the article. There is a book on this issue "Unveiling the whale" by Arne Kalland (2009) that takes a critical approach to the issue of whale intelligence and refers to a lot of the discourse. I think that would be a good start. Fedor (talk) 08:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Old Tom - the whale with a whale of a deal
Those interested in aspects of Cetacean intelligence might be rewarded with a look at this rather out-of-the way story. I do not believe that whales, dolphins etc possess intelligence markedly different from other herd mammals but the story of Old Tom will open some eyes and raise some eyebrows. Here, a wild Orca made what could be called a contract with a whaling community, and helped these humans capture and kill whales in return for being given the tongue and lips of the prey. This was the “Law of the Tongue” and for DECADES, these whalers had it very easy as Old Tom, with other whales alongside him, herded migratory Baleen whales into Twofold Bay (in Australia), and waited for the carcasses to be strung out for them to take their reward—the tongue and lips—after which the carcasses would be processed in the usual way. Old Tom died in 1930 but the museum in the town of Twofold Bay displays his skeleton, and he is still a revered legend there.

The Old Tom page does not provide much detail on this fascinating story, which, were it not well-documented, would be regarded as typically new age poppycock. The page gives little detail of other aspects of the story. Apparently, Old Tom was betrayed by some unbelievably greedy whalers who tried to take a Baleen whale from his grip and in so doing broke his teeth, leading eventually to his death. After Old Tom’s death, the whales in his group went elsewhere, and it is thought that their tame disposition towards humans led to whalers targeting them as easy catches.

As dolphins rather than whales are regarded as being the more intelligent of the cetaceans I wonder if there is any record of them (or other wild mammals) entering effectively into win-win contracts with their human neighbours.

It is typical of the apathy of Australians to most elements of their history that this astonishing story is given a bare couple of paragraphs in WP, and no one has yet had anything at all to add to the talk page there. You can compare this to the page concerning the trivial Exploding Whale story, which is given about 5 times the coverage, many more photos and notes and where the Talk Page is full, with two archives so far (!) Myles325a (talk) 06:38, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You do realize the skeleton of the killer whale at that museum was found to be only 35 years old (Ellis, Men & Whales, 1991, p. 112). "Old Tom" was claimed to be 80-90 years old (very doubtfull). Thus, either it's not "Old Tom" or there was more than one "Old Tom". OldBabyBlue (talk) 20:10, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

OP myles325a back live. It's like the Phantom, who is believed by the "jungle people" to be 400 years old. We white folk know that it is a succession of Phantoms, the legacy being handed down father to son. And so it is for old Tom. There was Grandfather Old Tom (the oldest of them all) and then his descendants took over the family business. Nevertheless, he is still known as "The Ghost who Breaches". Myles325a (talk) 03:54, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Language
There should be a picture of cetacean vocal organs and samples of their languge available. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.157.69 (talk) 22:40, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Math
Are dolphins good with math? If so, how do they view numbers and mathematics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.157.69 (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Religion
If dolphins are 'intelligent' could they have complex belief systems, maybe some hard for humans to understand? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.157.69 (talk) 22:46, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Self Awareness
This whole article is in need of a lot of work, especially in appropriate sourcing, but the Self Awareness section is particularly written like original research. The first source is a non-academic article about a 2006 mirror test study with elephants, ironically one that is co-authored by Diana Reiss, one of the leading researchers in cetacean cognition and author of several published dolphin mirror test studies not cited here. Many of the sources for the article seem to focus on elephant and human intelligence, often mentioning cetaceans only by comparison. The External Links section may not be normally considered encyclopedic, but at present it's a far better list of reliable and relevant sources for this topic. I removed this unsourced, unattributed sentence from the Self Awareness section:


 * Dr. Gallup termed the results "the most suggestive evidence to date" of mirror self-recognition in dolphins, but "not definitive" because he was not certain that the dolphins were not interpreting the image in the mirror as another animal.

...which is nearly copy-pasted from this article: "Research suggests dolphins capable of self-recognition" which can be found in External Links but not in References at all. On top of that the wording suggested a 1996 study was done "as a response to this criticism", which apparently consists of this quote from 2001. I also removed the false and POV aspersion that since the published, peer-reviewed study hasn't been repeated its scientific validity is questionable. One of the persistent 'themes' of this article seems to be the scientific consensus that elephant intelligence is quite substantial while that of cetaceans is dubious and debatable. This is pretty clear when comparing the equivalent section Elephant cognition: Self awareness, which is devoid of 'debate' like the rest of that article. It's worth noting that the same single 2006 study co-authored by Diana Reiss is the source there also, while her decades of peer-reviewed dolphin cognition studies (not to mention her book "Dolphin in The Mirror") are not mentioned and/or criticized as problematic here. Apparently only her cetacean mirror tests are 'susceptible to the Clever Hans effect'. Some might contend I'm simply arguing a POV in the other direction by downplaying ample scientific evidence for elephant intelligence; however it then seems odd that Reiss doesn't mention her cited elephant mirror study, or even elephants at all during this 2012 lecture: Thinking dolphin: Diana Reiss at TEDx, in which she lists animals who exhibit signs of self awareness. I believe the preponderance of elephant related content and references at least should be reviewed for being WP:UNDUE. AveVeritas (talk) 21:54, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Possible typo
I suspect the phrase "behavioral mimicry (inter- and intra-specific)" should contain species instead of specific. 16:49, 24 April 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.129.226 (talk)

Ambiguity in Brain Structure section
The last paragraph of that section contains the following sentence:

"The dolphin's greater dependence on sound processing is evident in the structure of its brain: its neural area devoted to visual imaging is only about one-tenth that of the human brain, while the area devoted to acoustical imaging is about 10 times as large."

The dolphin's acoustical-imaging area is ten times as large as what? Ten times as large as the dolphin's visual-imaging area, i.e. about the same size as the visual area of humans? Ten times as large as the acoustical-imaging area of humans? Ten times as large as the human brain itself? VictoriaWordNerd (talk) 00:48, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

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Unsourced content

 * Remove unsourced (tagged December 2015) "Comparative cognition" section. The article has been promoted to B-class. The criteria states: "The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources (WP:Reliable sources), and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited." --  Otr500 (talk) 02:09, 19 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Note: Reassessed article because of the many tags. Otr500 (talk) 02:38, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Shelling, Sponging
Hello, I created the article Shelling (fishing) but I wonder if it should go elsewhere. Fishing strategies ? Etc. Yug (talk)  16:24, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Brain structure
The first paragraph of the 'Brain structure' section is about elephant brains and echidna brains. Would it not be better for the section to start with information about cetacean brain structure, and only then move on to dealing with inter-species comparisons.

Guyal of Sfere (talk) 20:39, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

REM sleep
Cetaceans are not considered to have REM sleep as the modern consensus go.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8665646/ 81.207.186.222 (talk) 09:48, 15 July 2022 (UTC)