Dolphins are the smartest mammals on earth. The brain of a dolphin and are similar in structure. Despite numerous studies, they remain the most mysterious mammals on earth.
Studies of the extraordinary capabilities of marine life confirmed their intellectual abilities. Using MRI diagnostics, scientists found that the complexity of the brain structures in dolphins is not inferior to the human center, but, on the contrary, in comparison with humans, there are even an order of magnitude more convolutions and nerve cells.
The brain of a bottlenose dolphin has a weight of 1700 gr., only 350 gr. exceeding the weight of the central organ of the nervous system in an adult male. The external difference is only in the form: in mammals it has the shape of a sphere, the human brain is slightly flattened. The associative area of the cortex is absolutely identical with a person, thus confirming the presence of intelligence in marine life.
The parietal lobe in dolphins is comparable in size to the parietal and frontal lobes in humans. The visual part of the brain (occipital), in mammals is very large.
Despite excellent vision, and the ability to move their eyeballs in different directions, thereby covering a radius of 300 degrees, mammals use ultrasound for vision - directing it to various objects. Pushing off, the sound returns, thereby the dolphin determines the shape and distance to the object.
Unlike humans, dolphin brains can do without sleep, which is fatal to humans. The peculiarity of these creatures is the ability to turn off one half of the center, while maintaining all reactions. One part of the brain takes over all the functions when the other is in a state of sleep - this is tantamount to having two centers.
Dolphins, like humans, have the ability to reproduce sound. Mammals can accurately copy the various noises or trills of birds. Communication between relatives occurs through signals that are formed by the passage of air through the nasal passages.
Dolphin Vocabulary:
- Basic sound signals (about 60);
- Five levels of their different combination;
- 14 thousand different signals.
This is identical to the human vocabulary and if you translate the sound of mammals into words, it will look like a hieroglyph. Dolphins have a good memory and mental capabilities, which allows, like a person, to pass on experience to generations.
A feature of the central apparatus in cetaceans is the presence of magnetic crystals that orient in a wide expanse of the ocean.
Who is smarter?
Numerous studies of the brain structures of cetaceans confirm their evolutionary development and the presence of a higher form of intelligence (logic). Australian scientists have attributed dolphins to the closest human relatives, based on DNA analysis.
Perhaps this became the basis for the hypothesis - all cetaceans are the distant ancestors of man and they were forced to leave the land for good reasons. The size of the hemispheres is explained by oxygen starvation and, as a result, an increase in the organ.
Scientists - ichthyologists have proven that the brain of mammals is capable of expressing feelings: jealousy, resentment, love. This indicates the presence of a long-term memory and a mind close to a person.
Certain individuals of dolphins perceive complex linguistic constructions and are capable of analyzing the situation. Their level of intelligence is similar to that of a preschool child.
The big brain in dolphins is not associated with huge intelligence - there are too few neurons. Marine life needs a central organ for spatial orientation and thermoregulation. Based on this, mammals occupy an honorable second place in intellectual development after humans.
For decades, scientists have been trying to figure out exactly how the dolphin's brain works. Capable of learning, having their own social skills and clearly understanding the behavior of people, these mammals seem to have come from another planet - they are so different from representatives of the rest of the animal world.
Over the past fifty million years, dolphin brains have evolved to unprecedented proportions. One of the latest published studies, authored by marine biologist Lori Marino, claims that dolphins and whales have reversed evolution from land to the ocean depths. Here are a few facts that fully support these bold conclusions.
Dream
Sleep deprivation kills anyone creature- as true as gunshot wound. Only twelve days without rest is enough for a highly organized brain to turn off the main functions. But dolphins have learned to cheat the system: these amazing mammals can turn off, at will, half of the brain so that it can rest.
Language
Dolphins remain the only creatures in the world (other than humans, of course) that have their own language. They communicate using a complex combination of clicks and sounds. Moreover, the language of dolphins is complex enough to accurately coordinate the behavior of the entire flock. Researchers estimate the linguistic reserve of an ordinary dolphin at 8 thousand "words" - for an average person it is only 14 thousand, despite the fact that only about 1-2 thousand words are used in ordinary life.
Logical thinking
Scientists have found that dolphins have rudiments logical thinking. This is the highest form of intelligence development that no one expected to find in mammals. Dolphins were able to solve various complex riddles, find answers to complex questions, and even adjust their behavior depending on new circumstances set by humans.
Dimensions
The brain of an adult dolphin weighs more than the human brain - 1700 grams and 1400, respectively. In addition, dolphins have twice as many convolutions in their cerebral cortex as we do.
self-awareness
The latest data obtained by scientists may indeed signal the presence of a serious social structure in dolphins. They possess not only self-awareness (some other animals can boast of this), but also social consciousness, practiced in conjunction with emotional empathy.
Echolocation
The total number of nerve cells in a dolphin is higher than in humans. This is partly due to the ability of mammals to echolocation: they literally see with their ears. An acoustic lens located on the head focuses ultrasound, which the dolphin uses to "feel" underwater objects, determining their shape.
magnetic feeling
Another amazing property of the dolphin brain was the ability to sense magnetic poles. Dolphins and whales have special magnetic crystals in their brains that help these mammals navigate the expanses of the world's oceans. The same feature can also explain the reasons why the whales are thrown ashore: guided by the readings of their "GPS", they simply do not notice it.
Scientists have long noticed that advanced intelligence and evolutionary developed brain present in humans and other animals, often displaying social behavior. This led anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar to propose the social brain hypothesis. According to the theory, man developed a large brain in order to be able to live large social groups. Although in the last 20,000 years, due to the “domestication” of man, his brain has decreased in size, but before that, evolution had to quickly increase the brain of hominids in a relatively short time so that people could unite in large tribes.
In social communication, it is very important to recognize the so-called "outside knowledge", that is, to understand the hierarchy, social relationships and relationships such as "she knows what he knows" and the like. For example, the alpha male in a chimpanzee chooses any females for himself, but at the same time he is tolerant of attempts to mate with them from those who helped him to reign on the throne. Without a sufficiently advanced brain, such intricacies of social hierarchy cannot be assimilated.
Now a group of scientists from the US and the UK has published a new scientific paper "The Social and Cultural Roots of the Whale and Dolphin Brain", which confirms the social brain hypothesis.
The cetaceans (dolphins and whales) have the most advanced nervous systems of any taxonomic group and rank highly on any measure of neuroanatomical complexity. However, many cetaceans are also organized into hierarchical social structures and display a surprising breadth of cultural and social behavior, features that are - rare in animals - very similar to the social behavior of humans and primates. But so far, little evidence has been collected of correlations between large brains, social structures, and cultural behavior in cetaceans.
Whales and dolphins have a vast array of complex social behaviors, including:
- relationships in complex alliances;
- social transfer of hunting techniques (training);
- joint hunting;
- complex singing, including singing in regional group dialects;
- speech mimicry (imitation of other people's voices);
- the use of "voice signatures-identifiers" unique to a particular individual;
- interspecies cooperation with humans and other animals;
- alloparental care for someone else's cub (for example, by a female helper or "nanny");
- social games.
The researchers collected a large amount of data on each species of cetacean - body weight, brain size, the degree of manifestation of social communication on the above signs - and calculated the correlation between these indicators. The first diagram below shows relationships between species and brain size (red for larger, green for smaller). On the second diagram - indicators of social behavior (social repertoire). Finally, below is a graph of the relationship between these two parameters.
Scientists have found that the evolutionary development of the brain is associated with social structure type and group size. Moreover, the relationship with group size is quadratic, that is, the most developed brain and advanced social behavior are shown by medium-sized groups, and not small or large groups.
The authors of the scientific work point to clear parallels between marine mammals and primates/humans. Dolphins and whales also have a combination at the same time big brain, hypersocial behavior and diversity of behavioral patterns. It was these qualities that allowed man to multiply in incredible numbers and populate the entire Earth. Scientists believe that in dolphins and humans, intellectual abilities manifested themselves in the course of evolution as a kind of evolutionary reaction to the need to live in a society of their own kind.
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What brain does a dolphin have?
The brain of a 300-pound (about 135 kilograms) dolphin weighs 1,700 grams, while that of a human weighing 65-70 kg. - 1400 gr. In addition, the dolphin has twice as many convolutions in the cerebral cortex, although in a cubic millimeter of its substance there are relatively few neurons in any case less than in the brain of primates. Therefore, one should beware of hasty conclusions, especially in comparison with a person. However, who knows, maybe dolphins will be able to catch up and overtake primates in terms of intelligence.
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Neuroscientists believe that the dolphin brain is on par with the human brain and is potentially capable of doing the same thing as the human brain. Such an organ, according to the American physiologist John Lilly, provides dolphins with verbal communication with each other and in the future will make it possible to meaningfully talk with humans. Lilly proceeds from the fact that there is a critical brain size (1 kg), below which language is impossible. The bottlenose dolphin has an average brain weight of 1700 g. This is more than the average human (1400 g). The difficulty of verbal communication between a human and a dolphin is explained by the fact that a human hears only a small part of the signals of the second one: after all, the frequency perception range of dolphins is 10 times higher than that of humans.
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Over the past 47 million years, dolphin brains have evolved to a size never seen before in other animals. The new, most extensive study of the fossil remains of these marine inhabitants has set itself the goal of describing the dynamics of the corresponding evolutionary development. Indirectly, this may help to answer the question of how people themselves became so "brainy".
As you know, dolphins are capable of "intellectual feats" inaccessible to other animals. So, they can recognize themselves in the mirror, like humans and some higher primates. Of course, everything this is associated with the truly gigantic brain size of dolphins. Thus, in some species, the ratio of brain mass to total body mass can only be compared with that of humans. But at what pace the development of the brain of dolphins took place, still remained a mystery.
Three researchers, led by American biologist Lori Marino at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, tracked the evolutionary changes in the brain of dolphins using fossil remains.
After four years of working among museum collections, this team of scientists has identified 66 fossil skulls of ancestral dolphins, adding to the five previously studied. The brain sizes of these specimens were calculated using methods computed tomography(computed tomography - CT), and estimates of animal body mass were obtained by analyzing the size of the bones at the base of the skulls.
Fossil skulls up to 47 million years old have been studied. They were compared with 144 modern specimens, as a result of which the so-called EQ(encephalisation quotient - "coefficient of braininess") of each such creature. This coefficient connects the mass of the brain of a particular specimen with the average value of one or another type of animal of similar size, and if EQ is less than one, then this means that we are dealing with an "underdeveloped" creature, but if EQ > 1, then the brain considered relatively large. Humans are smarter than all other animals in this sense, with an EQ of about 7.
Remaining elements in the skeletons of dolphins confirm that they are descended from some kind of terrestrial quadrupedal mammals.
Blood tests suggested that cetaceans, which include dolphins, and ungulates are relatives. Once they returned from land to the water element (perhaps this was due to some kind of global catastrophe), eventually losing their hind limbs and acquiring fins.
Approximately 35 million years ago, these pinnipeds were the size of a small whale.- Approximately 9 meters long, had sharp teeth and an EQ of about 0.5.
And from that moment on, a mysterious change occurs: the old varieties inexplicably die out, being replaced by new group, which is called Odontoceti (a suborder of toothed whales).
The new study shows that all these creatures were much smaller than before, had smaller teeth, but they dramatically increased the size of the brain. Their EQ jumped to 2,5 - a phenomenon that Marino associates with the development of echolocation skills, that is, the use of sound waves to locate objects under water.
The study also shows that approximately 8 of the 67 species of Odontoceti (including dolphins) went through a second stage of EQ enhancement approximately 15 million years ago, reaching coefficients 4 and 5 , although the reasons for this second evolutionary leap remain completely unexplained.
There is only one similar case of "explosive" development of "mental abilities" among large animals, known to scientists today: over five million years of human history, EQ has grown from approximately 2.5 to 7. At the same time, the "mental abilities" of the rest of the "dolphin tribe For some reason, it went down.
"There is a myth that the development of life forms is always accompanied by an increase in brain size, Marino says. - However, from the point of view of animal metabolism (metabolism), mental abilities are very expensive, and therefore, according to the logic of evolutionary development, you need to have some extremely good reasons in order to "get" yourself a big brain". She adds that, according to another scientific myth, only one kind of creature with a large brain can develop at the same time and in the same place. However, new work shows that for 15 million years, many different species of dolphins and whales have happily coexisted in the ocean together.
Contact between humans and dolphins is one of the favorite subjects of science fiction. Moreover, the intelligence of dolphins in literature has become such a common place that, according to a number of American authors (Larry Niven, David Brin, etc.), dolphins in the future, together with people, will even be able to explore and populate the Galaxy.
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