Fed II Star - May 14, 2006 - Official News 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: NAME THAT DOLPHIN

Dolphins, apparently, have names. No, not Flipper or names given by humans - they have names which they use when communicating with each other, scientists have found. Researchers from St Andrews University in Scotland have been studying bottlenose dolphins in Florida and have discovered that they can recognize themselves and other members of the same species as individuals, with separate identities, by whistling.

The research was carried out on wild dolphins. Dr Vincent Janik reported that: "We captured wild dolphins using nets when they came near the shore. Then in the shallow water we recorded their whistles before synthesising them on a computer so that we had a computer voice of a dolphin.

"Then we played it back to the dolphins and we found they responded. This showed us that the dolphins know each other's signature whistle instead of just the voice.

"I think it is a very exciting discovery because it means that these animals have evolved the same abilities as humans. Now we know they have labels for each other like we do."

Of course, we don't know what those names actually mean... maybe the whistle does mean Flipper after all!