Word: dolphin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Dolphin Talk...
Once when Dr. Lilly was stimulating a dolphin, the electrical apparatus broke down, but a tape recorder kept on running. When he played the tape, he heard his own voice saying, "three hundred twentythree" (the footage on the tape). Then from the dolphin came the same words in a quacking, Donald Ducklike voice, but unmistakable. They were followed by a creditable imitation of the buzz of a transformer and the rattle of a movie camera. The dolphin had associated all these sounds with the pleasure-giving stimulation, and was trying to trigger it again...
...Mayday." Dr. Lilly is now convinced that dolphins have an extremely complicated language. They converse in a great variety of buzzes, whistles, rattles and grunts. Since most of the sounds are at higher frequencies than the human ear can hear clearly, Dr. Lilly plays tapes of dolphin talk at quarter speed. So far he has learned only one phrase of dolphin language: the "mayday" distress call, a sharp, up-and-down squeal that sounds like a wolf whistle...
Once he put a partially paralyzed dolphin in a pool. As it sank helplessly toward the bottom, it gave its "mayday" call, and the other dolphins rushed to its rescue. They boosted it up to the surface so it could breathe. When it sank again, one of them swam under it, scraping its tender undersurface and triggering a reflex action of its tail that shot it up to the air. The operation was accompanied by a blizzard of dolphin talk...
When the Virgin Islands installation is complete. Dr. Lilly and his helpers will spend long hours playing with the amiable dolphins and trying to converse with them. The Navy's interest in the project is in basic research; it wants to know everything possible about the sea. including the ways that sea creatures communicate. "After all," says Dr. Sid Caller of the Office of Naval Research, "submarines and frogmen are but poor replicas, hydrodynamically speaking, of what a dolphin does naturally." For instance, by swinging their heads from side to side, and uttering ultrasonic boops, dolphins can "look" through...