In one of the New York museums, American scientists presented forty photographs taken from a computer screen. They reflected the gradual transformation of man into a dolphin. It is under hypothetical conditions if people would completely move to live in the Ocean. Moreover, the information about dolphins was not put into the computer.

The machine had no idea about their existence. The result of the calculations was stunning. The computer with all its processors gave out not only the appearance of the "aristocrats of the sea", but also their physiological characteristics!

Seeing a dolphin in the sea is considered a very good sign. To communicate with them better is incredible happiness. These glorious creatures with clever eyes will say something in return.

And they know how to speak. Scientists have found this out, putting forward the version that dolphins communicate in their own language. There is an assumption that many years ago we spoke the same way as these cute mammals. It's just that our speech then evolved, but their speech remained at the same level. Can we return the former understanding?

People who spend a lot of time with dolphins say that they sing songs about famous events, fish, and everyone they met, rescued or accompanied. And their constant chirping is very pleasant to the ear.

Interestingly, in a similar way, sea intellectuals are able to communicate with various types of sea creatures. Moreover, dolphins can make quiet sounds. But only a small percentage of the world's population has the ability to hear them.

In the meantime, basic communication between a dolphin and a person takes place with the help of hand signals and sign language. Although, the trainers of these smiling creatures argue that sometimes even this is not required. Because mammals understand exactly what they hear.

Working with humans is generally fun for dolphins. And they always strive to help us in everything. They often provide an escort for ships by jumping and playing side by side. Another interesting feature of these creatures is that they live for today and do not let sad memories ruin life. They keep their own stories, but they see no reason to let history collide with the present. Oh, these sea inhabitants could tell a lot ...

Intelligence surprised scientists

Well, scientists have been trying for a long time to decipher the incomprehensible language of dolphins. And a linguist from Harvard University, George Zipf, developed his own way of doing this. He calculated how many times different letters appear in a typical English text. Indeed, several identical signs cannot stand in a row in a meaningful text, they occur with some frequency.

The luminaries then plotted the frequencies of the letters in a specific order and on a logarithmic scale. The result is an oblique line with a slope of -1. For texts in other languages, the slope was the same. An absolutely random set of letters, which does not carry any information, is positioned horizontally on the chart, without any tilt.

That is, any gibberish that has passed through a sieve of mathematical formulas will show a zero result on such a graph. Thus, scientists investigated the whistling of dolphins using the Zipf method and obtained the same slope factor as in human languages. That is - carrying information!

“So, dolphins are close to us in intelligence,” the scientists concluded. Now the point is to understand what these "whistlers" want to tell us?

DIRECT SPEECH

Researcher of the Laboratory of Bioacoustics Vladislav TARCHEVSKAYA, for many years has been dealing with the problem of sound communication of dolphins:

- It is possible that humans and dolphins are the most intelligent creatures in the universe. Marine life is fraught with extraordinary opportunities. The frequency range of sound signals in dolphins significantly exceeds that of humans. Judge for yourself: if our audio communication takes place in a frequency band of up to 20 kHz (and musicians are able to distinguish up to 40 kHz), then in dolphins this "ceiling" is raised to 300 kHz. Moreover, as a result of our research, it turned out that our "brothers" have about the same number of levels of organization of sounds as humans: six. Sound, syllable, word, phrase, paragraph, context.

In humans, semantic meaning arises from the 3rd level, that is, from the word. But at what level it begins in a dolphin, we do not yet know. But in terms of complexity, the organization of sound signals in humans and dolphins is almost the same. In general, there are many noticeable parallels between the two species - Homo sapiens and Orcinus orca. Their lifespan is about the same as that of humans, they grow up at the same age, are very sociable and live in families. And they have their own dialects - something like our languages.

Everyone has their own name

There is a legend that dolphins are reincarnated people who previously inhabited Atlantis, which disappeared under the waters of the ocean. Sounds pretty. And also, there is a version that dolphins, like humans, have names that they name each other.

DIRECT SPEECH

Pavel Vedenin, psychologist:

- It is true that dolphins are the second intelligent creatures on earth. And, if they lived on land, Darwin would determine that man originated from them. Dolphins read human thoughts at a great distance. Have you ever seen dolphins frolicking in the sea? They are not at all afraid of people and like to swim quite close to the swimmers. Probably, they would have played with us close to the coast, but, obviously, it is too shallow for them. There are cases when dolphins showed rather high "intellectual" abilities.

And it's easy enough to get in touch with them. And this has been done for a long time. I do not mean simple training, although it is impressive. But I would like to focus on the fact that these animals are not only trained, but also capable of training, that is, of consciously performing the tasks assigned to them. The logical chains that dolphins build are much longer and stronger than any other animal can bind.

Aliens from outer space live in the sea

In one of the New York museums, American scientists presented forty photographs taken from a computer screen. They reflected the gradual transformation of man into a dolphin. It is under hypothetical conditions if people would completely move to live in the Ocean. Moreover, the information about dolphins was not put into the computer. The machine had no idea about their existence. The result of the calculations was stunning. The computer with all its processors gave out not only the appearance of the "aristocrats of the sea", but also their physiological characteristics!

There is also other indirect evidence that dolphins are the closest relatives of modern humans. For example, a Chinese biologist has amazed the scientific world by claiming that dolphins are descendants of aliens from outer space. Here's an amendment: Professor Hsu Sensung has no doubt that some dolphins have a higher IQ than humans. He also claims to be in telepathic contact with them.

The professor's wards transmit signals to him. He perceives them as thoughts and images. From which he learned: the ancestors of dolphins flew to Earth on interstellar ships 100 thousand years ago. They were forced to leave their own planet due to dire environmental problems. However, on Earth, their technologies turned out to be unusable, and after centuries the civilization of stellar aliens fell into complete decline ...

Sometimes "gray ufonauts" paralyze a person at a distance ... Someone will grin, thinking that these are just modern myths, fairy tales of people with a heightened, unbridled imagination. But let's not rush to "draw the line". What is now being discovered by modern science in the field of dolphinology, and completely overshadows the most incredible fantasies and legends about the life of toothed cetaceans.

One of the latest hypotheses was put forward by the Kennedy Space Center astronomer Simon Clarke. In his opinion, dolphins are indigenous to one of Jupiter's moons. "Forget about the" little green men "- the most intelligent creatures after humans in our solar system can be dolphins," - said the scientist.

The fact is that when the Galileo space station launched by NASA several years ago flew only 400 kilometers from Jupiter's moon Europa, its sensitive radio detectors recorded some movement under the ice in the ocean.

Sound sensors picked up a whistle coming directly from under the ice. Then a directive from the highest echelons of power obliged NASA to classify all data on the Galileo program. Therefore, the details of the discovery became known only recently.

“After these facts were transmitted to Earth and subjected to rigorous computer analysis,” Clarke said, “the scientists were amazed. The audiographer showed that the frequency of sounds emanating from the ocean of Europa was identical to the sounds made by terrestrial dolphins! The probability of error is 0.001 percent.

Although at the moment it is impossible to say what kind of creatures "talk" in the oceans of Europe, scientists put forward a hypothesis that organisms similar to our earthly dolphins live on the distant moon of Jupiter.

DIRECT SPEECH

Doctor of Medical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the State Oceanarium of Ukraine (Sevastopol) Lyudmila Lukina:

- For a long time, the science of marine mammals considered dolphins to be secondary aquatic. During the ice age, in conditions of extreme cold snap, they went under water, adapted, turned into cute charming creatures. And there was a lot of evidence for that. And now there is a theory that this is a parallel human civilization.

There is debate about the origin of cute cetaceans, various hypotheses are being discussed, but the mystery of the dolphin's pedigree has not yet been solved. In any case, scientists are not yet able to say anything worthwhile about their origin. The boundless distance of time for us remains an intriguing and, alas, an unsolved mystery.

http://cloudwatcher.ru

Recent research by biologists has led to a sensational conclusion: dolphins are the most intelligent creatures on the planet.

Dolphin is an intelligent animal. New arguments in favor of this hypothesis were provided by recent studies by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania. For quite a long time, experts have studied the language of dolphins and received truly amazing results. As you know, sound signals arise in the nasal canal of dolphins at the moment air passes through it. It was possible to establish that animals use sixty basic signals and five levels of their combination. Dolphins are capable of creating a 1012 "dictionary"! Dolphins hardly use so many "words", but the volume of their active "vocabulary" is impressive - about 14 thousand signals! For comparison: the same number of words is the average human vocabulary. And in everyday life, people get by with 800-1000 words.

The dolphin signal, if translated into human language, is something like a hieroglyph, which means more than a single word. The fact that dolphins have a language that is more complex than that of humans is a real sensation.

Rare abilities

The nature sometimes asks amazing riddles. And one of these mysteries, no doubt, remains dolphins. Despite the fact that they often live in full view of humans, we know very little about them. But even the little that is known about these animals is startling. Dolphins have some truly amazing abilities. So amazing that the American John Lilly, who studied brain physiology at the University of Pennsylvania, called dolphins a "parallel civilization."

First of all, scientists are surprised by the volume and structure of the dolphin brain. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania placed the animal in the womb of a magnetic resonance imaging scanner and saw that the structure of the nervous system in dolphins is so perfect that sometimes it seems as if it is better developed than in humans. "The brain of a bottlenose dolphin," says Professor Laela Sai, "weighs 1,700 grams, which is 350 grams more than that of an adult male. In its complexity, the brain of a dolphin is by no means inferior to the human brain: there are even more folds, tubercles and convolutions in it." ... The total number of nerve cells in dolphins is higher than in humans. Scientists used to think that the brain of a dolphin is so large because nerve cells are not as densely packed in it as in humans. However, we were convinced of the opposite: the brain in the cranium is located the same. True, outwardly, the dolphin's brain looks more like a sphere than the brain of homo sapiens, which is slightly flattened. Dolphins have associative areas of the cortex that are identical to those of humans. "This fact indirectly indicates that dolphins can be intelligent," - say experts in marine biology.

The parietal, or motor, lobe of the dolphin's brain exceeds in area the parietal and frontal lobes of humans taken together. Why has nature endowed these creatures so? What is this - the result of centuries of evolution or, perhaps, the "legacy" of intelligent ancestors?

Interestingly, the occipital visual lobes in dolphins are extremely large, but they do not rely much on sight. Then what are they for? As you know, dolphins "see" with their ears to a greater extent, emitting ultrasounds. An acoustic lens on the dolphin's head focuses ultrasound, directing it to various objects. Thanks to this, the dolphin "sees" with its ears. He "feels" the underwater object, determining its shape.

The inhabitants of the deep sea have two hearing organs: one is normal, the other is ultrasonic, says researcher Mario Etti. - The external passage is sealed, which increases the ability of hearing in the water. Receptors of another organ are located on the sides of the lower jaw, they perceive the slightest sound vibrations. A dolphin hears with its lower jaw much better than we do with our ears. The hearing of dolphins and killer whales is 400-1000 times sharper than humans. Due to the many cavities in the blowhole (nasal valve), acoustic vibrations arise that propagate over huge distances in the water. For example, blue whales and sperm whales can hear the sounds made by their cousins ​​thousands of kilometers away!

As already mentioned, dolphins masterfully master their speech apparatus. Blowing back and forth the same portion of air, they give rise to such a range of sounds that their variations and number far exceed the sounds made by humans. Moreover, each dolphin has an individual voice, its own tempo and timbre of speech, manner of expressing itself and the "handwriting" of thinking.

It is very curious that the organs of hearing and speech, working simultaneously, create an amazing richness of the sound palette. The capabilities of the mammalian brain are so high that it is able to analyze separately the spectra coming at a frequency of 3000 pulses per second! In this case, the time interval between pulses is only about 0.3 milliseconds! And therefore, for dolphins, human speech is a very slow process. They're talking at high speed. In addition, they know how to isolate in the speech of their fellows such details that people do not even suspect, since our ears cannot catch them.

But that's not all. Scientists have conducted a series of experiments proving that dolphins can exchange highly complex messages. Here is just one example. The dolphin was given a certain task, which had to be performed by his brother, who was in the next aviary. Through the wall of the enclosure, one dolphin "told" the other what to do. For example, take a red triangle and give it to a person. Both dolphins received a small fish as a reward. However, it was clear that they did not work for remuneration, they were carried away by the very process of creative experimentation. Researchers conducted thousands of experiments, assignments were constantly changing, and the dolphins never got it wrong. The only possible conclusion from this: dolphins perfectly understand everything that is happening and orient themselves in the world like people.

The biologists who conducted the experiments were surprised to notice that often the subjects themselves began to control the course of the experiment and its organizers - people ... an experimental model for dolphins who tried to switch roles with them. So who studied whom?

Reason cousins?

One of the theories of the origin of dolphins says that they and other cetaceans evolved from ancient animals that left the land to the sea. The 20-meter basilosaurus and the fossil dorudon are named as possible ancestors. Neither one nor the other possessed as many brains as dolphins have today. Why did the animals that went to sea for residence need brains that are superior in structure to humans? After all, sharks calmly swim in the same water for hundreds of millions of years. They have a very small brain, and it is enough for them to catch prey.

There is another interesting hypothesis. Some scientists believe that in the process of evolution there was a period when the distant ancestors of man, for some reason, were forced to leave the land and live in water for some time. They had to get food by diving to great depths. Due to constant oxygen starvation, the brain volume of these creatures has increased markedly. Then, after another change in habitat conditions, our aquatic ancestors returned to land ... But maybe not all returned, but some branch remained in the ocean and evolved into dolphins? And the current inhabitants of the depths of the sea - our "cousins ​​in mind"? Not so long ago, Japanese sailors discovered and brought to the shore an unusual bottlenose, which had an atavism - "hind limbs", very reminiscent of feet ...

Why do dolphins need such powerful intelligence? They don't build houses, they don't create communications, they don't have television and the Internet. However, it may be that they do not need it. They have had enough of the colossal opportunities that they have. Perhaps dolphins already live in the virtual world of their consciousness and they simply do not need external signs of comfort and all that we call the blessings of civilization. And they look at us, humans, from the height of their intellect as backward creatures, unable to understand them or be of any use to them, and besides, in many cases, they act barbarously towards other creatures. Their community is a real parallel civilization.

And therefore it may happen that humanity is looking for brothers in mind in the depths of the Universe in vain, while they are very close. You just need to take a closer look at them, and, perhaps, then the person will discover all the wealth of parallel worlds. Whole ant cities, bee cities and urban bird nests are located nearby. Isn't it outside worlds - with their own laws, daily routine, history? But it will be difficult for a person to come to terms with the fact that there is no need to search for romantic parallel civilizations, and all previous searches are empty efforts. Although from time to time astronomers record signals in the vastness of endless galaxies that resemble a dolphin whistle.

Alexander Belov

OPINIONS

Brain work

Dr. Jerry Presley, Marine Fauna Specialist, Woodshole Oceanographic Institute (USA):

There are hypotheses that explain the evolution of the brain of mammals by their aquatic lifestyle. In this case, the brain is considered as a cybernetic system, consisting of elements-neurons, the reliability of which can be increased by increasing the number of spare elements. In other words, if there is a weak link, then it is better to duplicate it. The reason for the increase in the dolphin brain was oxygen starvation. Deep diving is an abnormal brain activity. And therefore, the one who can hold his breath and who does not suffer from the brain has an advantage. For example, a sperm whale has a larger brain than a blue whale because it dives to a depth of about a kilometer.

Olga Silaeva, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Leading Researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution. A. N. Severtsova:

It is believed that a person differs from animals in the presence of a language system. However, it is not. Language as a means of communication between individuals exists in almost all animals and insects. Dolphin vocabulary is about a thousand words. That is, dolphins have a highly developed speech culture.

In Douglas Adams' brilliant classic, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there were several animals smarter than humans. One - not without irony - was an ordinary laboratory mouse. Another creature knew about the intergalactic bulldozers that eventually vaporized the planet, and tried to warn us of the coming fate. The dolphins' last message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to double flip through the hoop whistling a hilarious song, but in reality the message was: "Good day and thanks for the fish!"

Dolphins are said to have an unusual level of intelligence that distinguishes and elevates them above the rest of the animal kingdom. It is widely believed that dolphins are highly intelligent (possibly smarter than humans), have complex behaviors, and possess proto-language abilities. However, recently, against the background of studies of these animals, a somewhat different, in some places opposite opinion has developed.

The elevated status of dolphins among animals came with John Lilly, a 1960s dolphin researcher and addict to psychotropic drugs. He was the first to popularize the idea that dolphins are intelligent, and later even suggested that they are smarter than humans.

Ultimately, after the 1970s, Lilly was largely discredited and did not contribute much to dolphin science. But despite the efforts of mainstream scientists to distance themselves from his bizarre ideas (that dolphins were spiritually enlightened) and even the craziest (that dolphins communicate with holographic images), his name is inevitably associated with work on dolphin research.

"He is, and I think most dolphin scientists will agree with me, the father of dolphin intelligence," writes Justin Gregg in Are Dolphins Really Smart?

Since Lilly's research, dolphins have shown that they understand signals transmitted by a television screen, distinguish between parts of their bodies, recognize their own image in a mirror, and have a complex repertoire of whistles and even names.

In any case, all these ideas have recently been questioned. Gregg's book is the latest tug of war between neuroanatomy, behavior and communication - between the idea that dolphins are special and that they are on par with many other creatures.

Why big brains

So far, the debunking of dolphins' abilities has focused on two main themes: anatomy and behavior.

Munger, a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, previously argued that the dolphin's large brain was more likely to evolve to help the animal retain heat than to perform cognitive functions. This 2006 article has been widely criticized by the dolphin research community.

In his new work (also written by Munger), he takes a critical approach to the study of brain anatomy, archaeological records, and the often-cited behavioral research, concluding that cetaceans are no smarter than other invertebrates and that their large brains have a different purpose. This time, he cites many behavioral observations as an example, such as recognition of an image in a mirror, which was carried out in September 2011 and appeared as a result in Discover. Munger found them incomplete, incorrect, or outdated.

Lori Marino, a neuroanatomist at Emory University who advocates brain intelligence, is working on a rebuttal.

Smarter!

Another argument - that the behavior of dolphins is not as impressive as it is said to be - cites Gregg. As a professional dolphin researcher, he notes that he respects dolphins' cognitive "achievements", but feels that the public and other researchers have slightly overestimated their actual level of cognitive ability. In addition, many other animals display the same impressive traits.

In his book, Gregg refers to experts who question the value of the self-perception test in the mirror, which is believed to indicate some degree of self-awareness. Gregg notes that octopuses and pigeons can behave like dolphins when given a mirror.

Additionally, Gregg argues that dolphin communication is overrated. While their whistles and clicking are certainly complex forms of audio signals, they nonetheless lack the characteristics of a human language (such as the confinement of finite concepts and meanings, or freedom from emotion).

In addition, he criticizes attempts to apply information theory - a branch of mathematics - to the information contained in dolphin whistles. Is it generally possible to apply information theory to animal communication? Gregg doubts, and he is not alone.

Gregg points out that dolphins certainly have many impressive cognitive abilities, but so do many other animals. And not necessarily the smartest: many chickens are as smart about some tasks as dolphins, Gregg said. Spiders also show amazing cognitive abilities, and in fact they have eight eyes.

Craving for knowledge

It is important to note that researchers like Munger are in the minority among scientists studying the cognitive abilities of dolphins. Moreover, even Gregg is trying to distance himself from the idea of ​​mediocrity in dolphins - he rather says that other animals are smarter than we thought.

Even Gordon Gallup, the behavioral neuroscientist who pioneered the use of mirrors to assess primates' self-awareness, expresses doubts that dolphins can do this.

“In my opinion, the videos from this experiment are not convincing,” he said in 2011. "They are suggestive but not convincing."

Arguments against the exclusivity of dolphins boil down to three main ideas. First, according to Munger, dolphins are simply not smarter than other animals. Second, it is difficult to compare one species to another. Third, there is too little research on this topic to draw strong conclusions.

Despite a reputation for being exceptionally intelligent, dolphins may not be as smart as they thought.

Scott Norris, writing for Bioscience, notes that "the dodgy Scott Lilly" did a lot to create the image of the "smart dolphins" in the 1960s. He was fascinated by dolphins and spent years teaching them how to talk. Lillies were unethical, sometimes even immoral, but he was not the only one trying to teach the language of animals, which were credited with the rudiments of intelligence. Complex communications are born out of social systems, and social interactions require other traits that are often associated with intelligence. It takes culture to form and memorize social bonds, learn new behaviors, and work together.

From this point of view, dolphins do indeed exhibit culturally and intelligently related behaviors and practices. Norris notes that studies of wild dolphins and whales show that their vocalizations are diverse and specific enough to be considered a language. Dolphins easily learn new behaviors and are even capable of imitation. They track complex social hierarchies within and between groups. They are even known to invent new forms of behavior in response to new situations, which, according to Norris, are considered by some scientists "the most distinguishing feature of intelligence." What's more, dolphins can even teach each other these new behaviors. Norris describes how some populations of dolphins used sponges to protect themselves from scratches and taught others this technique. This transfer of practices is viewed by many as the birth of a culture.

Yes, dolphins seem to be smarter than many species, but their behavior is by no means unique to dolphins. Many animals, such as wild boars, dogs, primates or sea lions, have complex vocalizations, social relationships, the ability to learn, imitate, and adapt to new situations just as complex. Many skills, particularly training, are more advanced in other species than in dolphins. Cultural exchange, which has yet to be proven in dolphins, is less common, but other animals are still not well understood. Other examples can be identified.

The problem is not only and not so much whether dolphins are smart, because on a certain level they are really smart, but whether they are smarter than other animals, and this remains to be seen. Dolphins love to attribute human traits. Many dolphins show "faces" and "smiles", which cannot be said, for example, of a wild boar. Looking at this grinning face, we begin to see people in dolphins. Are dolphins smart? It all depends on how smart you want them to be.

Ecology

Dolphins are cute and friendly marine life that are often confused with fish. However, dolphins are intelligent and inquisitive mammals, whose mental abilities surprise scientists a lot.

Dolphins evolved complex abilities living in the harsh conditions of the oceans and seas. For example, did you know that dolphins can be awake for a long time, have a unique ability to navigate in space, have a magnetic sense, and can even control blood flow in the body?

Dolphin brain

Dolphins know how to stay awake

All animals on the planet need sleep, including humans. The world record for self-deprivation of sleep belongs to Randy Gardner who hasn't slept for 11 days. However, already on the 4th day, he began to hallucinate.

If a person does not sleep, he will eventually die. The same will happen with any creature with developed brain functions, except for dolphins who, as it turned out, learned to deprive themselves of sleep and feel great at the same time. For example, baby dolphins do not sleep in the first month of their life in the same way as their parents.


The thing is that these amazing creatures can turn off half of your brain for some time. Scientists continuously tested the dolphins' reactions for 5 days, and, as it turned out, their reactions did not slow down. Blood tests were found to be negative for signs of stress or insomnia. Dolphins know how to use this ability endlessly.

Another study showed that dolphins can use echolocation for 15 consecutive days with almost perfect precision... This makes sense, as it allows animals to always be on the alert and notice the approach of predators.


However, the most amazing thing is that part of the dolphin's brain is still asleep. In this case, visual information begins to be processed by another, active part of the brain. In other words, if a dolphin "turns off" part of its brain, the second part of it can take over all the functions of the first... It's like having two brains instead of one.

Dolphin vision

Amazing sight of dolphins

Dolphins are known to use echolocation in order to navigate the world in which they live. Since visibility is poor in the depths of the sea, it is easier for animals to use sounds to "see" objects. You might think that they don't need sight at all, but this is not so.


Dolphin vision much better than it sounds. First, their eyes are located on either side of the head, which allows them to cover a vast area. at 300 degrees... They can see what is behind. Second, each eye moves independently of the other, allowing animals to look in different directions at the same time.

Dolphins also have reflective cell layer, which is located behind the retina of the eye and is called tapetem lucidem... This allows them to see perfectly in low light. What's more, dolphins see as well above the surface of the water as they do underwater.

Dolphin skin

You may find it interesting why other marine life do not cling to dolphins, for example, barnacles... Whales are often hung with these creatures, however dolphins seem to have immunity. Dolphin skin always looks smooth, clean and shiny. What is her secret?


Unique dolphin skin has a lot of advantages... Firstly, the upper layer of the skin - the epidermis - in dolphins is not rougher than in humans, it is in 10-20 times thinner than the epidermis of any terrestrial animal. However, it is growing 9 times faster than ours.


Dolphin's unique lungs

Dolphins are known to be excellent swimmers. For example, the bottlenose dolphin can hold its breath while underwater, up to 12 minutes while diving to depth up to 550 meters! They are capable of this thanks to their unique lungs.

Although the lungs of these animals are no larger than ours, they work much more efficiently. With every breath the dolphin changes about 80 percent or more air in the lungs. We can change only 17 percent.


The blood and muscles of dolphins can store and transport a huge amount of oxygen due to the fact that in the body of animals more red blood cells... This means a higher concentration of hemoglobin than humans.

However, all this cannot fully explain how dolphins manage to hold their breath for so long and dive to such depths. Turns out dolphins know how to direct the flow of blood in the right direction... For example, during deep diving, blood is transferred from the limbs to the heart and brain, improving their performance in extreme conditions.

Dolphin wound healing

When injured, dolphins are able to miraculously restore health. Scientifically, their ability to recover is comparable with something fantastic.

For example, dolphins can survive severely injured and can recover large amounts of damaged flesh in just a couple of weeks. Moreover, their appearance is able to return to its original form. without any scars and deformities.


By the way, dolphins also there is no bleeding... For example, a person with a serious open injury can die only due to blood loss. In case of injuries, the dolphin directs the blood flow in the right direction in the same way as it does when diving, which does not allow it to bleed out.

Dolphin natural pain relievers

Dolphins don't seem to care about inconveniences such as physical pain... After they receive serious injuries that would immobilize any living creature on the planet, they can safely continue to play, swim and even eat normally.

With open wounds, dolphins do not expose their nerve endings, which causes severe pain. This does not mean that they do not experience pain at all, they are also very sensitive, like us.

However, when seriously injured, dolphins just know how to .. ignore her... It is believed that their body is capable of producing special pain relievers, such as morphine, which, however, are not addictive.


Dolphins have developed such abilities in the course of evolution, which allowed them to survive in dangerous conditions. For example, if a predator is chasing you, it’s best not to show him that you are injured and that you are in pain. Then you have more chances to survive and not draw attention to yourself as weak and helpless.

Dolphins and infections

With open wounds on their bodies, dolphins are able to swim in water teeming with bacteria, and at the same time do not pick up any infections... It looks like they are not even afraid of the wounds from the dirty teeth of sharks. A person in this situation would immediately die from blood poisoning within a few days. However, the dolphins have nothing to do with it!

It turns out that no infections cling to dolphins. It is known that the immune system of these animals is similar to ours, but how then do they manage ward off all infection?

In fact, no one can say for sure where dolphins have such miraculous abilities. There is speculation that dolphins get some kind of antibiotics from plankton and algae.


The chemicals that these microscopic creatures produce have been discovered in dolphin subcutaneous fat... If the fat layer is damaged by injury, the antibacterial substances are released.

How do dolphins manages to accumulate these life-saving substances under the skin, and not to process them during metabolism, remains a mystery to scientists.

Dolphins are the best swimmers

In 1936 the British zoologist Sir James gray was amazed at how fast dolphins can swim. He began to study their anatomy in great detail and found out that the skin of dolphins should have magical properties that would prevent friction, only then would they be able to develop that speed. This idea was named "Gray's paradox" and until 2008, scientists could not solve it.


Gray was partially right: dolphins do have anti-friction features... However, Gray underestimated the muscle strength of dolphins, which is 5 times greater than the muscle strength of the most powerful person on the planet. What's more, dolphins are also very efficient at using their energy.


A person can use only 4 percent of their energy to move in water. Dolphins, in turn, transform 80 percent of energy in cravings making them the most efficient swimmers.

Dolphins magnetic sense

Why dolphins and whales sometimes washed ashore? This mystery has worried the minds of scientists for many years. Various theories have been proposed: strange diseases, environmental pollution, or testing of military equipment. However, research has not supported any of these theories.

Cases when animals were thrown ashore have been recorded for many hundreds of years, but only recently scientists began to guess what main reason: it turns out it's all about the sun and the magnetic field of our planet.


The brains of dolphins and whales have special magnetic crystals that allow them to sense the earth's magnetic field. With the help of such a built-in GPS system, they can navigate the endless expanses of the ocean, orienting themselves in space without much difficulty.

One group of researchers mapped the U.S. east coast where massive deaths of dolphins... As it turned out, these areas coincided with places where magnetic rocks reduced the levels of the planet's magnetic field.


Thus, a dolphin or whale that is guided by the magnetic field could simply "overlook" the shore and ended up on land.

Also, scientists have found that when the Sun emits too much radiation, it affects the magnetic senses of marine mammals and also confuses them. Most of the animals are thrown ashore when the activity of the Sun is most intense. This may also explain why the rescued animals return to shore again.

Dolphin electroreception

The sonar systems in dolphins are truly incredible. Amazes their ability feel objects in the distance... Animals are able to send sound signals and listen to echoes reflected from objects.

If we add to this rare feeling the rest of the abilities of dolphins, which were mentioned above, we can conclude that dolphins really have fantastic feelings and abilities that distinguishes them from other living beings.


However, Mother Nature endowed them with something else: electroreception - the ability to feel electrical impulses sent by other living beings.

Guyana Dolphins live off the coast of South America and look like bottlenose dolphins... Researchers have discovered special indentations in their beaks, which are able to recognize the electrical impulses sent by the fish muscles.


A similar feature is found in animals such as platypuses... They use it to find fish that are hiding in the silt. Echolocation allows dolphins to determine the position of objects in space, however, it not particularly effective at close range, so electroreception comes into play.