Biology: Dolphin Communication

The Complex Brain of the Dolphin.

During the 1960s scientists began studying how the remarkable dolphin communicates. The dolphin is a mammal, not a fish, in the order Cetacea, which also includes whales. These mammals breathe with lungs, nurse their young, have extremely complex brains, and are otherwise similar to land mammals. In 1960 the neurophysiologist Dr. John C. Lilly reported on his four years of talking to bottle-nosed dolphins (Tursiops truncatas) at a U.S. Navy facility near Charlotte Amalie in the Virgin Islands. He implanted electrodes in the brains of thirty dolphins and found a "pleasure center": stimulating the electrode implanted there caused the dolphins to have wide eyes and look like they were smiling. They would also change their behavior to make Lilly stimulate the electrodes more often. Similar experiments had been performed on chimpanzees, and the dolphins learned much more quickly.

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