Bottlenose dolphin moms modify their individually distinctive whistles — akin to a name — when their babies are nearby.
. The dolphins shout out their own “names” in the water “likely as a way to keep track of each other,” says marine biologist Laela Sayigh of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts., which tend to stick by mom’s side for three to six years. It’s a change that Sayigh first noticed in a 2009 study published by her student. But “it was just one little piece of this much larger study,” she says.
The researchers examined 40 instances of each dolphin’s signature whistle, verified by the unique way each vocalization’s frequencies change over time. Half of each dolphin’s whistles were voiced in the presence of her baby. When youngsters were around, the moms’ whistles contained, on average, a higher maximum and slightly lower minimum pitch compared with those uttered in the absence of calves, contributing to an overall widened pitch range.
“Bottlenose dolphins are a prime candidate for child-directed or calf-directed communication,” says Quincy Gibson, a marine mammal behavioral ecologist who was not involved with the study. Similar to humans, these dolphins form strong mother-baby bonds and learn vocalizations.
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