11 SEPTEMBER 2016 • 1:08PM
Two dolphins have been recorded
having a conversation for the first time after scientists developed an
underwater microphone which could distinguish the animals' different
"voices".
Researchers have known for
decades that the mammals had an advanced form of communication, using
distinctive clicks and whistles to show they are excited, happy, stressed or separated
from the group.
But scientists have now shown
that dolphins alter the volume and frequency of pulsed clicks to form
individual "words" which they string together into sentences in
much the same way that humans speak.
Researchers at the Karadag
Nature Reserve, in Feodosia, Russia, recorded two Black Sea
bottlenose dolphins, called Yasha and Yana, talking to each other in a
pool. They found that each dolphin would listen to a sentence of pulses without
interruption, before replying.
Lead researcher Dr
Vyacheslav Ryabov, said: “Essentially, this exchange resembles a
conversation between two people.
“Each pulse that is produced by
dolphins is different from another by its appearance in the time domain and by
the set of spectral components in the frequency domain.
“In this regard, we can assume
that each pulse represents a phoneme or a word of the dolphin's spoken
language.
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