Captive Orcas are Learning to Communicate With Dolphins, But What are They Saying?

Foreign language … it’s something that most American teenagers add into their daily academic schedules to meet graduation requirements. The foundation of learning a foreign language is vocal learning – or the ability to combine newly learned sounds in a way that is viewed as correct when spoken in social situations. While humans are one of the main species to display vocal learning, other animals such as bats, birds, and cetaceans have been observed, in a sense, speaking a foreign language.

According to a new study from the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, captive killer whales are displaying vocal learning by mimicking (and possibly communicating with) the clicks and whistles of bottlenose dolphins. Marine biologists figured this out by observing three individual whales from three different marine enclosures, and noticed that they were learning to modify their vocalizations to match that of their bottlenose dolphin neighbors.

Published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, research for this study is the first of it’s kind to highlight “interspecies vocal learning in toothed whales.”

The leader of the study, Dr. Ann Bowles, mentioned in a press release, “There’s been an idea for a long time that killer whales learn their dialect, but it isn’t enough to say they all have different dialects so therefore they learn. There needs to be some experimental proof so you can say how well they learn and what context promotes learning.”

Though the sample size used for the study was small (again, three different whales), researchers have opened up a new door in understanding cetacean interactions and behavior – especially when it comes to interspecies relationships. The study even addresses the possibility that orcas might even cooperate with other species using different “languages.”

Now that more evidence of vocal learning in cetaceans has been collected, we wonder how an orca’s ability to understand and possibly communicate with dolphins affects their daily lives in captivity. We have to ask: what exactly are orcas and dolphins saying to each other? While we will never be able to say for certain what conversations could take place between the two cetacean species, we do have a couple of ideas…

It’s no secret that dolphins and whales aren’t too happy about their living conditions…

Let’s talk about life expectancies for captive orcas for a minute!

And what about changes in anatomical structure? Did you know that a captive male orca’s dorsal fin collapses in captivity as a result of living a sedentary lifestyle?

Lead image source: Marcelo Campos/Wikimedia Commons