Dolphins 'speak' Welsh dialect
2007-05-25 07:46
Bangor - Dolphins living off the
coast of Wales whistle, bark and groan in a different dialect
from dolphins off the western coast of Ireland, scientists have
discovered.
Different physical environments might have contributed to
the mammals developing distinctive sets of vocalisations or
"dialects", said Simon Berrow from the Shannon Dolphin and
Wildlife Foundation.
Berrow supervised a master's thesis by student Ronan Hickey
at University of Wales, Bangor, who analysed 1 882 whistles from the dolphins in the Shannon estuary and bottlenose dolphins in Cardigan Bay in Wales.
The study found 32 different sound
categories, of which eight were only produced by the Shannon
animals.
"The idea that the sounds are different is not a bad notion
- you'd expect the information had to be different given the
diversity of the areas where they reside," Berrow told Reuters,
adding he would use the data to create a dictionary of sounds
and pursue the research further, should time and money allow.