Bottlenose dolphins exchange signature whistles when meeting at sea.

dc.contributor.author

Quick, Nicola J

dc.contributor.author

Janik, Vincent M

dc.coverage.spatial

England

dc.date.accessioned

2016-02-15T16:38:40Z

dc.date.issued

2012-07-07

dc.description.abstract

The bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, is one of very few animals that, through vocal learning, can invent novel acoustic signals and copy whistles of conspecifics. Furthermore, receivers can extract identity information from the invented part of whistles. In captivity, dolphins use such signature whistles while separated from the rest of their group. However, little is known about how they use them at sea. If signature whistles are the main vehicle to transmit identity information, then dolphins should exchange these whistles in contexts where groups or individuals join. We used passive acoustic localization during focal boat follows to observe signature whistle use in the wild. We found that stereotypic whistle exchanges occurred primarily when groups of dolphins met and joined at sea. A sequence analysis verified that most of the whistles used during joins were signature whistles. Whistle matching or copying was not observed in any of the joins. The data show that signature whistle exchanges are a significant part of a greeting sequence that allows dolphins to identify conspecifics when encountering them in the wild.

dc.identifier

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22378804

dc.identifier

rspb.2011.2537

dc.identifier.eissn

1471-2954

dc.identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11609

dc.language

eng

dc.publisher

The Royal Society

dc.relation.ispartof

Proc Biol Sci

dc.relation.isversionof

10.1098/rspb.2011.2537

dc.subject

Animal Communication

dc.subject

Animals

dc.subject

Behavior, Animal

dc.subject

Bottle-Nosed Dolphin

dc.subject

Echolocation

dc.subject

Pattern Recognition, Physiological

dc.subject

Sound Spectrography

dc.subject

Vocalization, Animal

dc.title

Bottlenose dolphins exchange signature whistles when meeting at sea.

dc.type

Journal article

duke.contributor.orcid

Quick, Nicola J|0000-0003-3840-6711

pubs.author-url

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22378804

pubs.begin-page

2539

pubs.end-page

2545

pubs.issue

1738

pubs.organisational-group

Duke

pubs.organisational-group

Staff

pubs.publication-status

Published

pubs.volume

279

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