Cetacean Intelligence Essay

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Cetaceans are thought to be some of the most intelligent species on this planet. Popular culture has embraced the idea of cetacean intelligence with shows such as the 1960s hit TV series Flipper, where a dolphin is used to help fight crime. In his comedic science fiction novels, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, author Douglas Adams suggests that dolphins are the second most intelligent creatures on Earth, behind mice and above humans. Although most scientists would probably argue that humans are the most intelligent species, the behavior and brain size of dolphins and other cetaceans suggests that they too are intelligent. This paper will briefly describe the reason some scientists believe cetaceans are intelligent species and then give examples of scientific studies, which suggest cetacean intelligence. Since bottlenose dolphins and orcas are the most widely studied cetaceans, the survey of field studies will primarily focus on these two species. At the end, this paper provides an argument of why some scientists discredit the high degree of cetacean intelligence.
Background
Encephalization is a relationship between brain mass and total body mass of an organism. Biologists often use the encephalization quotient (EQ) value, the relative size of a brain given an organism’s body mass, to gauge species’ intelligence. Humans have an average EQ of 7.44 and this is the highest EQ value of all known species (Kinser 2012). Chimpanzees and elephants, which are considered to be among the most intelligent species, have EQ values of 2.49 and 1.87, respectively. Bottlenose dolphins have the second highest EQ values of any species with an average EQ of 5.31 (Kinser 2012). Orcas have an EQ value of about 2.5 and larger cetaceans have ...

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...llent imitators. Imitation ability was tested at the dolphin institute; two bottlenose dolphins each had their own trainer and could see the other dolphin, but not the other dolphin’s trainer. Trainers then gave commands to the dolphins. In this experiment, it was found that dolphins, despite not being able to see the trainer, could successfully imitate another dolphin’s behavior after that dolphin was given a command from its trainer (TDI 2012). Additionally, dolphins could imitate human movements after associating analogous parts of their body with human parts. For example, the dolphin raised its tail when its trainer raised her leg (TDI 2012). The ability for dolphins to successfully imitate another dolphin’s behavior suggests that dolphins have learning abilities, giving further insight and a better understanding of social structures of the dolphin community.

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