Dolphin body language 'follows human verbal communication'

Dolphin body language follows human rules of verbal communication, scientists have discovered.

Published: 8:23AM BST 03 Aug 2009

As a general rule, the most frequently used words in human languages tend to be the shortest.

The same law applies to dolphins slapping their tails, diving, flopping sideways, and performing other movements when surface swimming, according to Spanish and British researchers.

"Patterns of dolphin behaviour at the surface obey the same law of brevity as human language, with both seeking out the simplest and most efficient codes," said Dr Ramon Ferrer i Cancho, from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain.

The "law of brevity" proposed by linguists holds that the most frequently used words – such as "the" and "but" - are also the shortest.

Dolphins appear to use the same "linguistic economy" in their swimming movements, say the researchers.

The creatures have a complex language that scientists are still far from understanding.

Although dolphins communicate mostly by means of audible clicks and whistles, experts believe they also employ body language when swimming close to one another.

Working with British colleague Dr David Lusseau, from the University of Aberdeen, Dr Ferrer i Cancho studied bottlenose dolphins living off the coast of New Zealand.

The scientists found that each movement pattern made by the creatures could be broken down into one or more of four basic units. For example, the "tail slap" pattern could be divided up into three sub-movements given the names "slap", "tail" and "two".

A pattern called "spy hop" was made up of the units "stop", "expose", and "head". In contrast, the "side flop" pattern only comprised "leap" and "side", while a movement dubbed "tailstock dive" consisted of only one unit, the "dorsal arch".

In total the researchers counted more than 30 patterns of behaviour and their related units. Dolphins were seen to execute many behaviour patterns made up of just one unit, and far fewer composed of four units.

The findings are reported in the journal Complexity.

"The results show that the simple and efficient behaviour strategies of dolphins are similar to those used by humans with words, and are the same as those used, for example, when we reduce the size of a photographic or video image in order to save space," Dr Ferrer i Cancho said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5963887/Dolphin-body-language-follows-human-verbal-communication.html