Is it true that whales are smarter than dogs?

Whales and dolphins are often regarded as the “brainiacs” of the sea, according to the majority of people. 

 

They have developed and adapted over millions of years to live full, diverse lives in water, with bodies, minds, sensory systems, and intellect that are all unique to them. 

 

Despite the fact that they are all so distinct from our own culture, they are nonetheless more similar to us than you may expect.

 

Whales and dolphins exhibit behaviors that are suggestive of intelligence and a well-developed mentality. Not only do they learn as individuals, but they also learn as persons who have the ability to pass on their knowledge to others.

 

 

 

What is the definition of intelligence?

To put it another way, intelligence may be described as the capacity to gain and use information; the ability to comprehend new or difficult circumstances; and the ability to reason in abstract terms. 

 

Dolphins have shown the capacity to accomplish all of these things, and the majority of experts believe that dolphins are highly intelligent creatures.

 They are well-known for being very excellent imitators and rapid learners; they display self-awareness, problem-solving, and empathy, as well as invention, teaching skills, sadness, joy, and fun, among other things.

 

 

What is the level of intelligence of whales and dolphins?

It’s a difficult issue to answer since it’s difficult to compare the intellect of a whale or a dolphin with our own, mostly because we can’t use the same ways to test both. There is no way we can put a dolphin through an IQ test or a mathematics exam, or challenge a whale to construct an engine or design a structure. 

 

For starters, they don’t have hands and communicate in a totally different way than we do with ours. In fact, dolphins seem to possess an almost incomprehensible, extraterrestrial intellect that is so unlike our own that it is maybe a better question to ask: ‘How are whales and dolphins intelligent?’

 

 

 

According to famous scientist Lori Marino, the evolution of dolphin intelligence may be traced back to the prehistoric period.

 

 

 

Exceptional Intelligence

Whales and dolphins have enormous brains; although sperm whales have the greatest brains, dolphins have a brain to body ratio that is second only to that of humans. Whales and dolphins have large brains.

 

 

 In general, large-brained creatures have a few characteristics in common: they live long lives, they are sociable, and their behavior is complex; females give birth to only a few offspring throughout their lives and provide extraordinary care to each baby while teaching them life skills; young people take their time growing up, becoming sexually mature, and becoming independent of their mothers.

 

 

The most evident distinction between human brains and those of dolphins and all toothed whales is that dolphins and all toothed whales have a whole section of their brains devoted to echolocation. 

 

Dolphins have the ability to “see” with sonar, and this ability or superpower is referred to as echolocation. Because sound travels far more efficiently in water than light, it makes more sense for dolphins to assess their environment by sound rather than light. 

 

Their echolocation talents are incredible; they are able to discern amazing information about everything in their immediate environment. In order to hunt and navigate even in dark or muddy water, they rely on echolocation. 

 

 

Dolphins may spy on one other’s pregnancies and listen in on the echolocating clicks of other dolphins to figure out what they’re gazing at, according to the National Geographic Society.

 

 

Spindle neurons, which are specialized brain cells, are found in the brains of whales and dolphins. Recognition, remembering, thinking, speaking, perceiving and adjusting to change are just a few of the sophisticated talents that are connected with these skills. 

 

 

As a result, it seems that they are quite intelligent! Not only that, but the region of their brain that is responsible for processing emotions (the limbic system) looks to be more complicated than ours. 

 

The neuroscientist Lori Marino argues that “a dolphin alone is not truly a dolphin; being a dolphin involves being integrated in a sophisticated social network…even more so than with humans.” She goes on to say that

 

 

Beings with a Sense of Humor

Apparently, whales and dolphins are gold medalists in the sport of play, which has been described as “a remarkable demonstration of intellect.” In addition to just enjoying themselves socially, pods of dolphins jump, tumble, back flip, and spin together, with no apparent cause for their behavior other than sheer social delight. 

 

 

A group of dolphins will sprint towards a boat in order to surf on the bow wave or play in the wake, displaying incredible gymnastics. Why? Wouldn’t you want to, if you had the opportunity? 

 

Some dolphins seek out large waves breaking near to shore and ride the waves with surfers, while others prefer to play with plants, shells, and other improvised toys in shallow water or on land.

 

 

Dolphins, on the other hand, have few competitors when it comes to game development. Many of them love a game of catch, possibly with a fish or even a turtle, in which they alternately toss the animal back and forth between them. 

 

 

Then there are hobbies that bring back memories of our childhood games of tag. Initially, one dolphin will bump another a few times to express its readiness to participate in the game, and then a high-speed chase across the water will ensue as they alternate taking turns pursuing each other.

 

 

In the course of their play, some dolphins have formed alliances with other creatures. Off the coast of Hawaii, incredible games between bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales have been captured on videotape. 

 

After swimming up to the whales’ noses, which then elevate themselves out of the water to an incredible height, the dolphins glide down their heads with a resounding splash as they pass by.

 

 As the game is played over and over again, it becomes evident that both players are having a good time playing.

In the wild, whale and dolphin play seems to be contagious, suggesting a clever brain that need time to decompress and blow off some steam every now and again to maintain equilibrium.

 

 

 

Experts in the field of communication

Whale and dolphin communication abilities are at the center of their cooperative lives and social interactions, and they are essential to their survival. Scientists are unanimous in their belief that they communicate with one another in complex, and at times, innovative, interactive ways.

 

 For certain animals, such as bottlenose dolphins and orcas, the intricacy of their communication and social relationships is great; they are very chatty….if only humans were clever enough to figure out what they are saying to one another.

 

 

Given Names Experts have discovered that several dolphin species have different names for one another; they can be distinguished from one another by their particular whistles, which are frequently referred to as signature whistles. 

 

Dolphins use their names to distinguish themselves from one another and to communicate with one another. 

 

From their moms, infant dolphins acquire their names (which are unique whistles) which they retain for the rest of their lives. At water, dolphins communicate with one another by swapping their names, and they have been seen to retain the names of other dolphins for decades.

 Except for humans, it is thought that no other species uses given names to address one another.

 

 

Having a Sense of Oneself

Cognitive psychologists often utilize the capacity to recognize oneself in the mirror as a measure of intelligence and self-awareness in children and adolescents. Mirror testing shows dolphins to be flawless! 

 

This is a very uncommon ability. The only other animals that have been demonstrated to identify themselves in a mirror are bottlenose dolphins, chimpanzees, elephants, and magpies, according to research.

 

 Human children begin to exhibit evidence of self-recognition at the age of 12 months at the earliest, while chimpanzees begin to show symptoms of self-recognition at the age of two years.

 Dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror even sooner than humans, at the age of seven months.

Dolphins will examine themselves in the mirror and examine regions of their anatomy that they can’t normally view, such as the inside of their own mouths, that they can’t normally see. 

 

They also mess about, whirling and posing in unexpected ways, all while looking in the mirror and analyzing their own moves. These behaviors show that a highly intelligent creature is aware of its own existence.

 

 

Cooperative Feeding, Tool Use, and Social Learning are all examples of cooperative feeding.

Whales and dolphins utilize very ingenious strategies to locate and capture their prey, and these approaches demonstrate high levels of cooperation, intellect, and social learning among the animals.

 

 

Bottlenose dolphins in Australia have evolved a wide variety of gadgets and strategies to assist them during mealtimes. ‘Spongers’ are a group of people who dive down to the ocean floor with a sea sponge they have snatched off the surface. They then poke the sponges into the sandy bottom while holding them firmly in their teeth, causing fish in hiding to become alarmed. 

 

The fish come to the surface, the sponge is dropped, the meal is consumed, and the tool is picked up for further exploration. To protect the dolphins’ noses from scrapes, scuffs, and stings, the sponges are used in the same manner that gloves are used to protect human hands while gardening or removing trash from a beach.

 

 

When fishing, other bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, carry enormous conch shells in their mouths, giving the impression that they are playing an instrument, according to researchers. 

 

The dolphin fills the shell with saltwater and then returns to the surface to shake it, allowing the seawater to drain out and leaving little fish trapped at the bottom of the shell. The dolphin has earned himself a nice feast with a single flip of his head. Dolphins pass on their knowledge of these unique and inventive fishing strategies from generation to generation.

 

 

Using their incredible speed, which can reach up to 20 miles per hour, dolphins swim around schools of mullet fish in the shallow waters of Florida Bay in the United States, churning up curtains of muck that compel the fish to rush out of the water and into the dolphins’ waiting jaws. 

 

 

Hundreds of dusky dolphins off the coast of Patagonia corral schools of anchovies into tidy circles, which they then take turns gulping down. 

 

Dolphins have collaborated with fisherman in a number of countries, including Brazil, India, and Myanmar, for decades, and they have been fishing cooperatively together.

 

 Before casting their nets, shore-based fisherman wait for the dolphins to indicate that they have gathered a large number of fish. The dolphins then easily collect disoriented fish that pour out around the nets, saving the fishermen time and effort.

 

 

Then there’s the humpback whale’s bubble net, which is a fascinating feat that they do. A pod of humpback whales has discovered a school of fish. Rather of attacking them, they swim under the fish in ever-shrinking circles, producing air bubbles as they do so. 

 

With each successive smaller circle, the tightly packed bubbles encircle the fish in an ever tightening ‘net,’ and then, when the timing is perfect, the whales swim up the net, jaws agape, and consume the fish in large groups. 

 

 

Whales play a variety of functions in the feeding process: some are bubble-blowers, some dive deep to ensure that the fish are forced upward, and others even produce calls to aid in herding the prey. Teamwork is something that is handed on from generation to generation.

 

 

When hunting, orcas cooperate with one another as well; for example, in Norway, orcas work together to herd schools of herring into tightly packed balls. With their white patches flashing in the water to terrify the fish and form a bait ball, the orcas then turn around and smack the balled fish with their tails, stunning them and making them easier to capture later on.

 

 

Finally, individual dolphins have provided some one-of-a-kind demonstrations of social learning and information transmission that are worth mentioning. The first of them is Billie. She was saved and rehabilitated in captivity after being entangled in a sea lock in the 1980s, and she was released back into the wild barely three weeks after being rescued.

 

 

 Scientists were astounded to discover that, following her return to the water, she began tail-walking, a behavior taught in marine parks for prizes that she must have witnessed, despite the fact that she had not been trained herself during the three weeks she spent in captivity. 

 

The fact that Billie learned the talent so quickly is one thing… but she was soon instructing her wild buddies on how to do it as well, simply for fun!

Kelly, on the other hand, is a different story. Unfortunately, she is now housed at a research facility in the United States, where she has been taught to keep her tank clean. 

 

 

A fish is given to her every time she brings a piece of litter to her trainer’s attention, which she appreciates. As a result, she’s constructed around the concept. 

When she comes upon a piece of paper, she wedges it beneath a stone and shreds it into pieces, which she then raises to the surface one at a time, until she has finished. In this way, a single piece of trash might result in multiple fish for her. 

 

 

Aside from that, she’s seen that birds flock to her tank in search of food. To do this, she baits a bird with one of her fish and then brings the bird to her trainers, who will feed her even more fish in return! Besides developing these incredible methods on her own, she has also passed them on to her calf, which is very astounding. This is a stunning example of social learning combined with exceptional intellect.

 

 

 

Whales and dolphins are very intelligent creatures!

Perhaps we humans should rethink the conventional wisdom that we are unique and that no other creature can think or speak like a human, hence no other species can equal our intelligence? 

 

 

There is evidence to suggest that whales and dolphins have communication skills that are comparable to or even better to those of humans in certain areas.

 Dolphin communication is so advanced that there is a good chance that a dolphin will be able to communicate a sound picture of something like a fish to other dolphins in the vicinity. In other words, they have the ability to communicate in ways that humans can’t even fathom.

 

 

 

It is possible that we will one day develop a method of communicating with the other sentient entities that share our planet with us.

 

 

“On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars, and so on – whereas all the dolphins had ever done was muck around in the water having a good time,” 

 

 

Douglas Adams, author of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, said in a wonderful thought…. On the other hand, dolphins have always felt that they are significantly more clever than humans – and for exactly the same reasons.”