How do we know dolphins are so intelligent?

[Soapy Sam]

How smart, actually, do you have to be to recognise yourself in a mirror? I mean on a good day, I get it right more often than chance would predict and gods know I'm pretty thick.

How good is dolphin vision, anyway? I thought they used echo location to identify things. I can't see close up vision being that useful to dolphins. It's not like they do a lot of close up fine work, shaving and stuff.

I agree with Larry Niven, that if they have shown one piece of survival oriented intelligence , it's that they don't ever kill humans if there are witnesses, an error that may shortly bring about the end of 350 million years of shark evolution.

 

[Jim_MDP]

I agree with Larry Niven, that if they have shown one piece of survival oriented intelligence , it's that they don't ever kill humans if there are witnesses, an error that may shortly bring about the end of 350 million years of shark evolution.

"Cradle" ?

 

[Baker]

From scotth's link

The studies began in 1998 at the New York Aquarium with two captive-bred bottlenose dolphins. A control was first established by marking the dolphins with a marker filled with water rather than ink. After several repetitions, they were marked with circles and triangles and then sham marked once again.

In 16 video-taped repetitions, each dolphin repeatedly swam directly to the mirror to investigate the place where it had been marked, often twisting and turning to expose the proper spot.

Fascinating story I heard the military uses dolphins for setting mines under enemy ships and subs among other task.

 

[sadluxation]

Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs -- "Oh ◊◊◊◊," Says Humanity

A related quote:

"Humans think that they're smarter than dolphins because they've developed war, the atom bomb, and culture, while all dolphins do is swim around all day and have sex. Dolphins think that they're smarter than humans for the exact same reasons."
-- Douglas Adams

Did rwald post this on porpoise? Nyk, nyk, nyk...

 

[rwald]

What, it doesn't get your seal of approval?

 

[spoonhandler]

The info on the mirror test is interesting, but I have some questions. Presumably, the dolphins were familiar with the mirror and had been given time to check it out. Then someone draws on them with a pen with only water for ink, leaving no mark. The dolphins went to the mirror? Then someone draws on them and leaves a mark of some kind and the dolphins look in the mirror again. Was there anything about the test design that may have given the dolphins the idea that when someone uses a pen or sham pen on them they are supposed to go to the mirror? What was the purpose of the sham pen? If the dolphins were looking for a mark from the pen, wouldn't this confuse them? Did they behave differently to the sham marking?

I've seen footage of a test like this and I did get the impression the dolphins were looking at themselves in the same way we do. I'm just curious about how we interpret this behaviour.