How many years have dolphins been on earth. Dolphins: the second intelligent creatures on earth! Dolphins gather in large shoals

Each dolphin in the ocean has its own name, to which it responds when called by relatives. He receives it as soon as he is born, and it is a characteristic whistle lasting 0.9 seconds. Dolphins not only call each other by name, but also introduce themselves when meeting strangers. And to identify a relative by voice, without seeing him, is a couple of trifles for them.

Dolphins are mammals from the family of toothed whales of the cetacean order. There are about forty species of these animals on the planet, and you can see them anywhere in the oceans. Most dolphins prefer to live in tropical and subtropical latitudes, but there are those who like colder waters, so they can be seen close to the Arctic, and some species are found both there and there. For example, although the white-faced dolphin lives mainly in the North Atlantic, it can often be seen off the coast of Turkey.

Most members of the family (for example, bottlenose dolphins, white-faced dolphin) are marine inhabitants, but there are four species that prefer to live in fresh river or lake water. The river dolphin lives in Asia, as well as in the waters of the South American rivers of the Amazon and Orinoco.

Unfortunately, if earlier representatives of this family met often, now the river dolphin has practically disappeared and is listed in the Red Book due to habitat loss, environmental pollution, a decrease in the amount of food and small populations.

Description

The length of dolphins ranges from one and a half to ten meters. The smallest dolphin in the world is Maui, which lives near New Zealand: the length of the female does not exceed 1.7 meters. A large inhabitant of the deep sea is considered to be a white-faced dolphin about three meters long. The largest representative is the killer whale: the length of males reaches ten meters.

It is worth noting that males are usually ten to twenty centimeters longer than females (the exception is killer whales - here the difference is about two meters). They weigh on average from one hundred and fifty to three hundred kilograms, killer whale - about a ton.

The back of sea dolphins is gray, blue, dark brown, black and even pink (albino) colors. The front of the head can be either solid or white (for example, a white-faced dolphin has a white beak and front of the forehead).

In some species, the mouth is rounded in front, the beak-shaped mouth is absent. In others, small sizes, the head ends with an elongated mouth in the form of a flattened “beak”, and the mouth is shaped in such a way that it seems to people watching them that they are always smiling, and therefore they often have an irresistible desire to swim with dolphins. At the same time, even a huge number of teeth of the same cone-shaped shape does not spoil the impression - dolphins have about two hundred of them.

Due to the elongated body and smooth, elastic skin, these animals almost do not feel water resistance during movement. Thanks to this, they are able to move very quickly (the average speed of a dolphin is 40 km / h), dive to a depth of about one hundred meters, jump out of the water nine meters high and five meters long.

Another unique feature of these marine mammals is that almost all species of dolphins (with the exception of the Amazonian river dolphin and several other varieties) see well both underwater and above the surface. They have this ability due to the structure of the retina, one part of which is responsible for the image in the water, the other - above its surface.

Since whales and dolphins are relatives, like all representatives of cetaceans, they are quite capable of staying under water for a long period. But, they still need oxygen, so they constantly float to the surface, showing a blue muzzle and replenishing air supplies through a drawbar, which overlaps under water. Even during sleep, the animal is fifty centimeters from the surface and, without waking up, swims out every half a minute.

Way of life

Dolphins live in packs and do not tolerate loneliness very well. Although they do not have a leader, they perform all actions in concert: they hunt together, raise children, have fun, performing jumps of amazing beauty one after another.

The dolphin is considered one of the most intelligent mammals on our planet: the weight of its brain is 1700 grams, which is three hundred grams more than a human, and there are also twice as many convolutions in the cerebral cortex. This explains their highly developed social consciousness, ability to sympathize, readiness to help sick and wounded relatives, as well as drowning people.

Dolphins help quite actively: if one of the members of the flock is injured or barely afloat, they support him near the surface so that he cannot drown and choke. They do the same in relation to a person, helping to get to the shore. Some scientists explain why dolphins do this by caring for the population: each individual in the flock is valuable - and everything must be done to keep it alive.

Language

For communication, animals use gestures (turns, jumps, different styles of swimming, head, fins, tail), as well as voice: the sounds of dolphins are about 14 thousand signals, and everyone has heard about the songs of dolphins. These unique animals are able to perceive the frequency of vibrations up to 200 thousand/sec, while the human ear - up to 20 thousand.

They also have a four times better ability to analyze the sounds of dolphins, separating frequencies from each other (to find out why dolphins have such abilities, there has been a lot of research lately). Communication occurs mainly with the help of ultrasound (it is especially convenient for them to use it to transmit sound over long distances).

The songs of dolphins are not only ultrasound: the sounds of dolphins often sound at an average frequency and are expressed in clicks, squeaks, whistles (studies have shown that they perceive their speech as hieroglyphic pictures).

Dolphin sounds are of two types:

• Sonar or echolocation - animals hear the echo of a beating sound and identify it;
• Whistling or chirping - these sounds of dolphins are used for close communication with relatives and animals express their emotions by them. Scientists have counted about 186 different types of "whistles", which, like human speech, contain sounds, syllables, words, phrases, paragraphs, context and dialect.

Nutrition

The diet of dolphins is based on fish, squid, shrimps (some dolphins in the ocean, in order to catch their favorite prey, are quite capable of diving to a depth of up to 260 kilometers), killer whales eat marine mammals and birds.

They fish in different ways. Sometimes the whole flock of dolphins is looking for her, sometimes - by a separate group or sent in search of a scout.

If hunting takes place on the high seas, dolphins surround a large school of fish, knocking them into a heap, after which they take turns diving there and feeding. If they fish near the shore, the strategy is somewhat different: a flock of dolphins drives schools to land, after which the fish are easily caught in shallow water.

reproduction

The ability to reproduce in females appears between the fifth and twelfth years of life, in males between the ninth and thirteenth. Their couples are unstable and animals change partners every time.

How long the pregnancy lasts is not precisely established, presumably this period is from ten to eighteen months. When giving birth, the female is very close to the surface, so that as soon as the baby is born, raise her tail high, giving him the opportunity to take a sip of air before falling into the water.

Usually one baby about half a meter long is born, and up to six months the mother feeds him with milk and protects him. Newborn cubs usually do not fall asleep in the first month of their life and do not allow their mothers to sleep, swimming around them and emerging to the surface every thirty seconds, forcing them to be constantly on the alert.

Relationships with people

Humans and dolphins have a long and complex history: until recently, animals were actively hunted, which led to the complete and partial extinction of some species. After the fishing was banned, the situation improved, but a new trend appeared: to catch these animals for the show (especially since they are very smart and grasp everything on the fly) and giving people far from the sea the opportunity to swim with dolphins. It should be noted that the idea is not the best, because if under natural conditions the inhabitants of the sea live from thirty to fifty years, in captivity - only seven.

Their early death is primarily influenced by a too passive lifestyle, even despite constant training for participation in the show, extremely limited space and the quality of water: the lack of a complete set of nutrients and minerals they need in it.

Recently, people and dolphins have learned to interact better (first of all, this applies to humans, since these animals are sociable, friendly and peaceful). Moreover, communication with these mammals is beneficial to almost everyone: giving the opportunity to listen to dolphin songs, chat, stroke the blue back, feed fish, swim with dolphins, psychotherapists and doctors effectively use to treat diseases in children such as cerebral palsy, early childhood autism, etc.

Dolphins are incredibly smart and friendly to humans, they have a cheerful disposition and are simply adorable animals. It is not without reason that these aquatic mammals deserve such a respectful attitude. Let's learn more about these amazing animals.

The word dolphin goes back to the Greek δελφίς (delphis), which in turn comes from the Indo-European root *gʷelbh- "womb", "womb", "womb". The name of the animal can be interpreted as "newborn baby" (perhaps because of the external resemblance to a baby or because the cry of a dolphin is similar to the cry of a child).

The dolphin is the only mammal whose birth literally begins with the tail, and not with the head! Young dolphins stay with their mother for 2 or 3 years.

In nature, there are almost forty species of dolphins, their closest relatives are whales and sea cows. Dolphins evolved relatively recently - about ten million years ago, during the Miocene. Most species of dolphins live in salt water, but there are also freshwater animals.

Adult dolphins reach sizes from 1.2 m in length and weight from 40 kg (river dolphin) to 9.5 m and 10 tons (killer whale). The brain is the largest organ in the dolphin's body. During sleep, a part of the brain is awake, allowing the dolphin to breathe in sleep so as not to drown! The life of a dolphin is directly dependent on access to oxygen.

Dolphins have a weak sense of smell, but excellent eyesight and absolutely unique hearing. Emitting powerful sound impulses, they are capable of echolocation, which allows them to perfectly navigate in the water, find each other and food.

Dolphins are capable of making a wide range of sounds with the help of a nasal air sac located under the blowhole. There are roughly three categories of sounds: frequency-modulated whistles, explosive impulse sounds, and clicks. Clicks are the loudest among the sounds made by marine life.

Dolphins can swim at speeds up to 25 miles per hour for long periods of time. This is about 3 times faster than the fastest swimmers in the world.

The so-called. is associated with dolphins. "Grey's paradox". In the 1930s Englishman James Gray was surprised by the unusually high swimming speed of dolphins (37 km / h according to his measurements). Having made the necessary calculations, Gray showed that, according to the laws of hydrodynamics for bodies with unchanged surface properties, dolphins should have had several times greater muscle strength than was observed in them. Accordingly, he suggested that dolphins are able to control the streamlining of their bodies, maintaining a laminar flow around at speeds for which it should already become turbulent. In the United States and Great Britain after the Second World War and 10 years later in the USSR, attempts began to prove or disprove this assumption. In the United States, they practically ceased from 1965-1966 to 1983, as erroneous conclusions were made on the basis of incorrect estimates that the "Grey's paradox" does not exist, and only muscular energy is enough for dolphins to develop such speed. In the USSR, attempts continued in 1971-1973. the first experimental confirmation of Gray's conjecture appeared.

Dolphins have a system of sound signals. There are two types of signals: echolocation (sonar), used by animals to study the situation, detect obstacles, prey, and “chirps” or “whistles”, for communication with relatives, also expressing the emotional state of the dolphin.

Signals are emitted at very high, ultrasonic frequencies, inaccessible to human hearing. The sound perception of humans is in the frequency band up to 20 kHz, dolphins use frequencies up to 200 kHz.

In the "speech" of dolphins, scientists have already counted 186 different "whistles". They have about the same levels of organization of sounds as a person: six, that is, a sound, a syllable, a word, a phrase, a paragraph, a context, they have their own dialects.

In 2006, a team of British researchers from the University of St. Andrews conducted a series of experiments, the results of which suggest that dolphins are capable of assigning and recognizing names.

Communication with dolphins has a positive effect on the human body, especially on the child's psyche. British experts came to this conclusion back in 1978. Since that time, the development of "dolphin therapy" began. Now it is used to treat many physical and mental diseases, including autism, and other ailments. Swimming with dolphins relieves chronic pain, improves immunity and even helps children develop speech.

Dolphins are also used in pet therapy to treat people with ultrasonic sonar.

A dolphin and a pregnant woman off the coast of Ixtapa, Mexico. Ixtapa, MexicoPicture: CATERS

An absolutely unique feature of dolphins is that they can "look inside" a person, like an ultrasound device - for example, they quickly determine the pregnancy of a woman. The feeling of “new life” is often very emotional for dolphins, they react violently and joyfully to pregnant women, and as a rule, pregnant women are not allowed to swim in enclosures (although this may be the best time to communicate), so as not to take away the attention of animals from other visitors, and to avoid an involuntary "emotional attack" on the unborn baby.

Incredibly romantic fact from the "private" life of dolphins - ethologists studying Amazon dolphins have discovered that males give gifts to potential mates. So, what gift is the female dolphin waiting for to consider her as a candidate for the continuation of offspring? Of course, a bouquet of river algae!

India has become the 4th country to ban the keeping of dolphins in captivity. Earlier similar measures were taken by Costa Rica, Hungary and Chile. The Indians call dolphins "a person or person of a different origin than "homo sapiens". Accordingly, the "person" must have its own rights, and its exploitation for commercial purposes is unacceptable by law. Animal behavioral scientists (ethologists) say it is very difficult to define the line that separates human intelligence and emotions from the nature of dolphins.

The United States and Russian law enforcement agencies have trained oceanic dolphins for military purposes. Fighting dolphins have been trained to detect underwater mines, rescue sailors after their ship is destroyed, and search and destroy submarines using kamikaze techniques.

A dolphin has twice as many convolutions in the cerebral cortex as a human.

Dolphins not only have a "vocabulary" of up to 14,000 audio signals that allows them to communicate with each other, but they also have self-awareness, "social consciousness" and emotional empathy - a willingness to help newborns and the sick by pushing them to the surface of the water.

Dolphins are voracious predators, feeding mainly on fish, mollusks, and crustaceans; sometimes they attack their relatives.

Dolphins are mostly social, found in all seas and even rise into rivers.

Dolphins are famous for their playful behavior and for the fact that for the sake of entertainment they can blow air bubbles in the form of a ring under water with the help of a blowhole. These can be large bubble clouds, bubble streams, or individual bubbles. Some of them act as a kind of communicative signals.

Within a pack, dolphins form very close bonds. Scientists have noticed that dolphins care for sick, wounded and elderly relatives, and a female dolphin can help another female with difficult births. At this time, nearby dolphins, protecting the female in childbirth, swim around her for protection.

Along with humans and bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees), dolphins are the only animal species that can mate for pleasure.

Another proof of the high intelligence of dolphins is the fact that adults sometimes teach their cubs to use special tools for hunting. For example, they “dress” sea sponges on their muzzles in order to avoid injury when hunting for fish that can hide in bottom sediments of sand and sharp pebbles.

Dolphin skin is very delicate and easily damaged by contact with other surfaces. That is why before petting a dolphin, it is necessary to remove all sharp objects, such as rings.

Dolphins have up to 100 teeth in their mouths, but they do not chew food with them, but only capture it. Dolphins swallow all their prey whole.

Dolphins can dive to depths of up to 305 meters, but they usually swim this deep only when hunting. Many bottlenose dolphins live almost in shallow water. In Sarasota Bay, Florida, dolphins spend considerable time at a depth of only 2 meters.

The oldest dolphin in captivity was named Nelly. She lived in the marine mammal park "Marineland" (Florida) and died when she was 61 years old.

When dolphins hunt, they use an interesting tactic to drive the fish into a trap. They begin to circle around the school of fish, close the ring, forcing the fish to huddle into a tight ball. Then, one by one, the dolphins snatch the fish from the center of the school, preventing it from leaving.

Dolphins can rise up to 6 meters above the water when they jump out of the water.

Dolphins have long been one of the most beloved waterfowl for humans. And this is not surprising! After all, dolphins are the most peaceful, smart and friendly creatures on the planet! When we talk about dolphins, we always imagine trained cetacean creatures performing acrobatic stunts before our eyes. However, there are countries that categorically oppose dolphinariums, believing that these smart creatures should not live outside the natural environment, because the number of dolphins is significantly decreasing from year to year. And only the human factor is to blame.

A bit of history

It is assumed that the sperm whale, whale, dolphin, including the sea pig, descended from the same ancestors - mammals that inhabited the earth millions of years ago, but were not purely land animals, but rather liked to hunt and live in the water. These are mesonichids - omnivorous creatures with hooves, like those of horses and cows, with a predatory, wolf appearance. According to approximate data, mesonichids lived for more than sixty million years, and they inhabited the modern continent of Asia, part of the Mediterranean Sea (in ancient times it was the Tethys Sea). These animals, most likely, fed on any medium-sized aquatic animals and any fish that then inhabited the numerous swamps off the coast.

And due to the fact that mesonichids spent most of their lives in any body of water, their appearance gradually began to develop in breadth, flow around, the limbs turned into fins, while the hair on the skin began to disappear, and subcutaneous thick fat developed and intensified under it. To make it easier for animals to breathe, the nostrils ceased to fulfill their original function: in the process of evolution, they became a vital organ for the animal, since creatures could breathe through them, and that’s all, thanks to their displacement to the top of the head.

Even if for a long time it was believed that the ancestors of cetaceans, including dolphins, are indeed mesonychids, nevertheless, they “borrowed” most of all from hippos, and numerous molecular studies prove this. Dolphins are not just descendants of these artiodactyls, they are still deeply similar and belong to their group. Until now, hippos and hippos live mainly in the water, on land they are only a couple of hours to eat. That is why scientists suggest that hippos are one of the evolutionary branches of cetaceans. It's just that the whales went further than the hippos, they generally abandoned life on land and completely switched to life in the water.

And if it seems strange to you that hippos with hooves are related to legless cetaceans, then we want to give another version of taxonomy, for example, land animals with 4 legs that evolved from fish. Simply, we should not be surprised that long, as our civilization appeared, the evolution of dolphins went so rapidly.

Description of dolphins

Dolphins are large aquatic animals that breathe air, unlike fish, whose respiratory function is provided by gills. Sea dolphins are in the water all 24 hours, and here they give birth to little dolphins. Since the female herself feeds her babies, therefore they are warm-blooded creatures, mammals.

Unlike relatives - whales, dolphins are more beautiful creatures. In addition to sharp teeth in their smart and friendly look, you can not find any sinister intrigues. So, an adult dolphin can be 2.5 meters long, weighs only three hundred kilograms. Whereas it can be nine meters long and weigh eight tons. Males are always larger than females, at least 20 centimeters. They have over eighty teeth. The color of the body and fins is black or gray, while the tummy is white.

The largest organ The cetacean dolphin has a brain that is surprisingly awake all the time the dolphin sleeps. The brain allows the animal to breathe all the time, even when it sleeps: this way the dolphin will not drown, because the supply of oxygen for cetaceans is very important for life.

Scientists have called the skin of dolphins a natural miracle. This is their wealth! When dolphins calmly extinguish water turbulence, when the body needs to slow down a little.

This is interesting!
The creators of submarines have long looked closely at how dolphins swim. Thanks to the dolphins, the designers managed to create an artificial skin for the submarine.

Dolphins: what they eat and how they hunt

Shellfish, various types of fish and other aquatic animals are the food of the dolphin. Interestingly, dolphins can eat a lot of fish in a day. Dolphins hunt fish in packs, and each of its members can eat up to thirty kilograms. All this is due to the fact that dolphins are animals that, at too low temperature conditions of ocean or sea water (below zero degrees Celsius), must always maintain their own temperature in order to be optimal. And warm-blooded dolphins help in this thick subcutaneous fat, which is constantly replenished due to a huge amount of food. That is why dolphins are always on the move, hunting, and only at night allow themselves a little rest.

A flock of dolphins can very quickly catch up with a flock of fish, because in the sea these animals are aces. If the dolphins are already close to the beach, they instantly form half rings around the fish in order to push their future food to shallow water and eat there. As soon as dolphins capture fish schools, they do not immediately rush at them, but then continue to keep them in a circle so that they do not swim away, and each member of the flock can have lunch or dinner with their favorite food.

To see dolphins, it is enough to find a school of fish. Precisely these cetaceans will live where there are many, many fish. In summer, dolphins can be seen in abundance in Azov, when mullet and anchovy move into the sea to feed. Dolphins also swim close to the Caucasian shores in early autumn, when the fish begin to migrate in herds.

As you have noticed, it is rare to see one dolphin in the ocean, as these animals are very friendly, they like to live in packs, hunt together and even jump beautifully and perform their tricks harmoniously, dolphins are able to do it together with their comrades. Be that as it may, dolphins never got along with killer whales. Also, there are still poachers who prey on these friendly earthly creatures. Despite everything, dolphins trust people and even know how to communicate not only with each other, but also with other animals. They will never leave their comrades in trouble. And in case of severe danger, they can even help a person. How many legends and stories about dolphins saving people's lives exist in the world. Some even watched as the dolphins pushed boats that were carried away by the winds to the shores.

Dolphin breeding

Unlike other inhabitants of the water world, dolphins are the only ones that are born with tails, not heads. And that's the way it is. Loving mothers do not leave their cubs even two or three years after birth.

This is interesting!
Dolphins are incredibly sensual and compassionate animals. A little dolphin, even after it becomes completely independent, an adult male or female, never under any circumstances leaves its parents.

And not only to their own brethren, dolphins experience great affection and love, but even to whales, other animals (they don’t like killer whales) and people. Once a female and a male have babies, they never part, even after having multiple babies. Who, if not dolphins, know how to love their cubs, gently and lovingly deal with them, teach them, take them with them to hunt, so that soon the children themselves will know how to hunt fish.

This is interesting!
If dolphins hunt and feel danger, they lead their children from behind, but if there are no external threats, dolphin cubs calmly swim ahead of their parents. Interestingly, after the cubs, the females swim, and then the males are the defenders.

Relationships with people

Since each dolphin with its tribesmen and whales lives in peace and harmony, it behaves accordingly. The feeling of help in these animals is developed to a special extent. They will never leave a sick dolphin to die, they will even save a choking person at sea if, by a lucky chance, they find themselves side by side. Dolphins will hear a human cry for help far away, as their hearing is very highly developed, as well as the brain section.

The fact is that dolphins spend all their time in the water, which is why their vision is weakened (weak water transparency). Then, as the hearing is developed superbly. The dolphin uses active location - hearing is able to analyze the echo that occurs when it emits characteristic sounds from any objects surrounding the animal. Based on this, the echo tells the dolphin what shape, how long the objects around it are, what they are made of, in general, what they are. As you can see, hearing completely helps to fulfill the visual role for the dolphin, which does not prevent this peace-loving creature from feeling complete in such a complex world.

It's easier than ever for a human to tame a dolphin. Fortunately, like a dog, the animal is easy and simple to train. One has only to entice the dolphin with a delicious fish. He will perform any somersault for the public. Although dolphins have one flaw, they can forget any trick very quickly if a person forgets to feed him in time.

Why do we all treat dolphins differently than other animals. Looking at these cute and funny creatures, you forget about how huge these animals are, and how, despite their size, they are the only cetaceans that can be safely classified as best “friends”.

Dolphins, like grandmothers on a bench, curious overly. They swim up to a person with interest, flirt with him, throw a ball, and even smile, although few people notice this. They are so arranged, smile at us, laugh with us. Well, we can't call a dolphin's face a muzzle, the smile on his face is cheerful and friendly - that's what attracts us to them!

Dolphins love us, we love them. But there are ... heartless people who, for the sake of profit, forget about humanity and kill these peaceful creatures. In Japan, dolphin hunting is like drinking water! They don't even think about talking about sympathy for dolphins. On other continents, dolphins are placed in dolphinariums for the amusement of the people. In cramped conditions in which they do not live longer than five years (for comparison, in nature, dolphins live up to fifty years).

This is interesting!
The Indian state became the fourth in the world to ban the construction of dolphinariums. Asian Chile, Costa Rica, and Hungary were the first to ban these cetaceans in captivity. For Indians, dolphins are like a person who also has the right to freedom and life in nature.

Dolphin therapy

The history of the great friendship between sea dolphins and humans goes back far into the past, even before scientists began to call these animals dolphins. Researchers of the body language of cetaceans have come to the conclusion that they have developed verbal communication skills in the same way as humans. If a mentally ill child, an autist, spends a lot of time with dolphins and “communicates” with them, then this has a beneficial effect on him. The child starts smiling and laughing. The British talked about this back in the 70s of the last century. Subsequently, dolphin therapy began to be actively used to treat not only mental and neurological diseases, but also many physical ones. Swimming with dolphins together is useful, you can relieve stress, severe headaches, neuralgia and even rheumatism.

Anomalies in behavior

All of you, probably, have seen such a picture on the news or on the Internet, when the beaches are full of voluntarily ejected dolphins. Often they themselves are thrown away, because they are very sick, injured, or poisoned. Dolphins clearly hear sounds from the shore, which are very similar to cries for help from their fellows. Therefore, upon hearing such a cry, dolphins rush to the shore to help, and often find themselves trapped.

Dolphins, perhaps one of the most amazing creatures on our planet. The Polynesians and the ancient Greeks had legends that dolphins were once people and have not yet forgotten about it. Sailors, under whatever flag they sailed, considered meeting with dolphins a happy omen. Over the past two centuries, a huge number of versions have been put forward about what dolphins are. Some researchers consider them to be highly developed animals, others - an alternative form of civilization, others - people from outer space. Attempts to "make contact" with dolphins have been known since ancient times. However, most of them break on the language barrier...

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Dolphins are excellent swimmers and divers. Scientists have long tried to find an explanation for Gray's paradox: a swimming dolphin spends half as much energy as required by the laws of hydrodynamics. Not so long ago it turned out that the secret of such economical energy consumption is the special structure of the skin, which dampens the turbulent eddies that occur during movement.

A number of experiments have been carried out with coatings for ships and submarines, and fuel consumption for prototypes has dropped dramatically. Dolphins are also extremely economical in their oxygen reserves. Compared with human, which uses only 20% of the oxygen it breathes, the dolphin is able to absorb up to 80%. Part of the oxygen is used immediately, and part is stored in the blood and muscles. This is what allows dolphins to spend under water up to half an hour.

The aquatic environment has changed not only the appearance of dolphins, but also their perception system. Unlike terrestrial animals, for which sight is the main thing, aquatic animals, as a rule, are forced to rely on other senses, primarily hearing. Dolphins can perceive a much wider range of sound frequencies than humans. The human ear perceives sound waves with a frequency of up to 15-20 kHz, the dolphin's ear - up to 150-200 kHz. But that is not all. His hearing is 100 times more sensitive than human, and the ability to distinguish sounds and decompose the general sound background into component frequencies is 3-4 times greater than human capabilities.

In one of the New York museums, American scientists presented forty photographs taken from a computer screen. They reflected the gradual transformation of a person into a dolphin. This is under hypothetical conditions, if people would completely move to live in the Ocean. Moreover, information about dolphins was not put into the computer.

The machine had no idea about their existence. The result of the calculations was stunning. The computer with all its processors gave out not only the appearance of the "aristocrats of the sea", but also their physiological characteristics!

Seeing a dolphin in the sea is considered a very good sign. To communicate with them closer is an incredible happiness. These glorious creatures with intelligent eyes, and look, they will say something in response.

And they know how to speak. This was found out by scientists, putting forward the version that dolphins communicate in their own language. There is an assumption that many years ago we spoke the same way as these cute mammals. It's just that our speech then evolved, and theirs remained at the same level. Is it possible for us to restore the former mutual understanding?

People who spend a lot of time with dolphins say they sing songs about famous events, fish, and everyone they meet, rescue, or accompany. And their constant chirping is very pleasant to the ear.

Interestingly, in a similar way, marine intelligences are able to communicate with various types of sea creatures. Moreover, dolphins can also make quiet sounds. But only a small percentage of the world's population has the ability to hear them.

In the meantime, elementary communication between a dolphin and a human takes place with the help of hand signals and sign language. Although, the trainers of these smiling creatures claim that sometimes all this is not required. Because, mammals accurately understand everything they hear.

Working with people is generally fun for dolphins. And they are always willing to help us in everything. They often provide escorts for ships, jumping and playing nearby. Another interesting feature of these creatures is that they live for today and do not let sad memories ruin their lives. They keep their own stories, but see no reason to let history collide with today. Oh, these marine inhabitants could tell a lot ...

Intelligence surprised scientists

Well, scientists have been trying to decipher the incomprehensible language of dolphins for a long time. And George Zipf, a linguist at Harvard University, developed his own way of doing this. He counted the number of times different letters appear in a typical English text. Indeed, in a meaningful text, several identical signs cannot stand in a row, they occur with some periodicity.

Then the luminaries plotted the frequencies of the letters in a certain order and on a logarithmic scale. The result is a sloping line with a slope equal to -1. For texts in other languages, the slope was the same. An absolutely random set of letters, which does not carry any information, is located horizontally on the chart, without any inclination.

That is, any abracadabra that has passed through the sieve of mathematical formulas will show a zero result on such a graph. Thus, scientists studied the whistle of dolphins using the Zipf method, and obtained the same slope coefficient as that of human tongues. That is - carrying information!

“So, dolphins are close to us in terms of intelligence,” the scientists concluded. Now it's up to us to understand what these "whistlers" want to tell us?

DIRECT SPEECH

Vladislav TARCHEVSKAYA, a researcher at the Laboratory of Bioacoustics, has been working on the problem of dolphin sound communication for many years:

- It is possible that humans and dolphins are the most intelligent creatures in the universe. Marine life is fraught with extraordinary opportunities. The frequency range of the dolphin's sound signals significantly overlaps the human one. Judge for yourself: if our sound communication occurs in the frequency band up to 20 kHz (and musicians are able to distinguish up to 40 kHz), then in dolphins this “ceiling” is raised to 300 kHz. Moreover, as a result of our research, it turned out that our “brothers” have about the same levels of organization of sounds as a person has: six. Sound, syllable, word, phrase, paragraph, context.

In humans, semantic meaning arises from the 3rd level, that is, from the word. But at what level it begins in a dolphin, we do not yet know. But in terms of complexity, the organization of sound signals in humans and dolphins is almost the same. In general, there are many notable parallels between the two species - Homo sapiens and Orcinus orca. Their lifespan is about the same as that of humans, they mature at the same age, are very sociable and live in families. And they have their own dialects - something like our languages.

Everyone has their own name

There is a legend that dolphins are reincarnated people who previously inhabited Atlantis, which disappeared under the waters of the ocean. Sounds nice. And yet, there is a version that dolphins, like people, have names that they call each other.

DIRECT SPEECH

Pavel Vedenin, psychologist:

- It is true that dolphins are the second intelligent creatures on earth. And, if they lived on land, Darwin would have determined that man originated precisely from them. Dolphins read human thoughts at a great distance. Have you ever watched dolphins frolicking in the sea? They are not at all afraid of people and like to swim quite close to the swimmers. Probably, they would play with us close to the shore, but, obviously, it is too shallow for them. There are cases when dolphins showed quite high "intellectual" abilities.

And getting in touch with them is quite easy. And this has been done for a long time. I do not mean simple training, although it is impressive. But I would like to focus on the fact that these animals are not only trained, but also capable of training, that is, of the conscious fulfillment of the tasks assigned to them. The logical chains that dolphins build are much longer and stronger than any other animal can link.

Aliens from outer space live in the sea

In one of the New York museums, American scientists presented forty photographs taken from a computer screen. They reflected the gradual transformation of a person into a dolphin. This is under hypothetical conditions, if people would completely move to live in the Ocean. Moreover, information about dolphins was not put into the computer. The machine had no idea about their existence. The result of the calculations was stunning. The computer with all its processors gave out not only the appearance of the "aristocrats of the sea", but also their physiological characteristics!

There is other circumstantial evidence that dolphins are the closest relatives of modern humans. For example, a Chinese biologist shocked the scientific world by claiming that dolphins are descendants of aliens from outer space. Here's an amendment: Professor Hsu Sensung has no doubt that some dolphins have a higher IQ than humans. He also claims to be in telepathic contact with them.

Wards of the professor transmit signals to him. He perceives them as thoughts and images. From which he drew: the ancestors of dolphins flew to Earth on interstellar ships 100 thousand years ago. They were forced to leave their own planet due to terrible environmental problems. However, on Earth, their technology proved unusable, and centuries later, the civilization of stellar aliens fell into complete decline ...

Sometimes "gray ufonauts" paralyze a person at a distance... Someone will grin, thinking that these are just modern myths, fairy tales of people with a sharply unbridled imagination. But let's not rush to draw the line. What modern science in the field of dolphinology is now discovering completely covers the most incredible fantasies and legends about the life of toothed cetaceans a hundredfold.

One of the latest hypotheses was put forward by an astronomer from the Kennedy Space Center - Simon Clark. In his opinion, dolphins are the indigenous inhabitants of one of the moons of Jupiter. “Forget the ‘little green men’ — the smartest creatures after humans in our solar system may be dolphins,” the scientist said.

The fact is that when the Galileo space station launched by NASA a few years ago flew only 400 kilometers from the moon of Jupiter Europa, its sensitive radio detectors recorded some movement under the ice in the ocean.

Sound sensors picked up a whistle coming directly from under the ice. Then a directive from the highest echelons of power ordered NASA to classify all data about the Galileo program. Therefore, the details of the discovery became known only recently.

“After these facts were transmitted to Earth and subjected to careful computer analysis,” Clark said, “scientists were amazed. The audiograph showed that the frequency of sounds coming from Europa's ocean was identical to the sounds made by terrestrial dolphins! The error rate is 0.001 percent.

Although at the moment it is impossible to say what kind of creatures are "talking" in the oceans of Europe, scientists hypothesize that organisms similar to our earthly dolphins live on Jupiter's distant moon.

DIRECT SPEECH

Doctor of Medical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the State Oceanarium of Ukraine (Sevastopol) Lyudmila Lukina:

- For a long time, the science of marine mammals considered dolphins to be secondary aquatic. In the ice age, in conditions of extreme cold, they went under water, adapted, turned into cute charming creatures. And there was plenty of evidence for that. And now there is a theory that this is a parallel human civilization.

There are disputes about the origin of cute cetaceans, various hypotheses are discussed, but the mystery of the dolphin pedigree has not yet been solved. In any case, scientists are still unable to say anything worthwhile about their origin. The boundless distances of time remain for us an intriguing and, alas, unsolved mystery.

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