Dolphin Communication

Written by Asiyah | Edited by Hitej | November 12th, 2023 | Science

Did you know that humans are not the only species that can communicate? Many animals can, but dolphins have one of the most advanced communication skills. They have many ways to communicate, not only by sound, but also by movements and actions. We will talk more about how dolphins emit sound and echolocation. Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s dig deeper into the world of dolphin communication.

How Do Dolphins Emit Sound?

Image Credit: Buzzle

As you can see in the diagram to the left, several structures allow a dolphin to make sounds. In the air, dolphins emit sounds by letting out air through their blowholes. They have muscles that can change the shape and size of their blowhole to make different sounds. Underwater, dolphins depend a lot on sound to find both food and their way through the ocean. They also use it, of course, to communicate with other dolphins. The sounds come from inside the dolphin’s head, below its blowhole, and usually without air coming out from its blowhole. 

Two main theories attempt to explain how the dolphin emits sound underwater. The first one, called the nasal sac theory, is that the dolphin takes a breath, closes its blowhole, and air comes back from the dolphin’s lungs into a channel that leads to the dolphin’s closed blowhole, and to one or more air sacs.

When the air goes to the air sacs, it inflates them. These sacs have a nasal plug in their openings, and as air goes over the nasal plug, different sounds are made! The second theory is that the air sacs act as an acoustical mirror, concentrating sound made by small knobs of fatty tissue just below the blowhole. When air is forced past them, they flap together and send a pulse out into the dolphin’s surroundings (usually water).1 Scientists have not been able to find out exactly how dolphins emit sounds because they have never been able to look inside the dolphins’ heads while they are making the sounds.

Echolocation

Dolphins use echolocation for multiple purposes. One of them is to find food. By emitting sounds and keeping track of how much sound is returned and how fast it is returned, they can determine where and how far an object is, either their prey or their predator.2  They can also use it to communicate with one another, and their communication is quite extraordinary. Did you know that the calls mothers use for their calves are unique? That’s true! Studies have shown that each dolphin has a unique whistle that represents them and that only they respond, kind of like how every human has a name. So a mother’s call to her youngest calf will be different from that to her oldest calf, and only the individual she calls will respond. Additionally, calls vary across the spectrum of casual to urgent, depending on the situation.3

Conclusion

In conclusion, dolphin communication is a broad topic and more interesting than it seems. Dolphins use a range of communication skills, from sound emission to movements, to “talk” to one another, and they also use echolocation to find food and stay away from danger. We still don’t know exactly how they communicate, and there’s so much more to explore! Maybe this weekend you can do some more research and see what else you can learn about these amazing creatures.

Sources

  1. How Dolphins Make Sounds: https://dolphins.org/acoustics
  2. How Dolphins Communicate: https://us.whales.org/whales-dolphins/how-do-dolphins-communicate/
  3. Study on Mother-Calf Communication: https://assets.speakcdn.com/assets/2871/kuczaj_et_al_2009_gotta_go.pdf
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