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Claire Saavedra
Writing 1010
Brenda McKenna
November 24, 2015
What Makes Dolphins Smart?
When I was a kid, I would always bring home all kinds of animals, especially
amphibians, because I lived next to a lake. At that time, I lived in Florida. I would capture frogs,
tadpoles, chicks, turtles, lizards, worms, snails, and more. I would take them to my patio and act
like I was a scientist. My best friend, Paulina would always and we would capture animals
together and take them to my house. We would take care of them without my parents knowing
because they would get angry. Especially my dad. He does not like animals. I would try to
convince my dad to let me keep my animal collection but sadly, it did not work. I tried to show
him how cute they are and once put a lizard in the palm of his hands. He quickly jerked his hand
like it was a disgusting creature.
One day, my family and I went on a vacation to SeaWorld; it was only three to four hours
away from where we lived. When we got there, I was so excited to see all different types of
animals. They were very different from the animals I was used to. I believe that it was when I
went to SeaWorld that I gained an interest in marine animals; especially dolphins. SeaWorld had
a room called, Dolphin Cove there people get to touch and ride the dolphins. The problem was
that we had to pay and my parents didnt want too so I did what any other little girl would do; I
sneaked inside. There was a dolphin right in front of me and it just stared at me for a while so I
touched it. It was so slimy and smooth. Then a lady noticed me and escorted me out to my
parents.

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My first resource that I am going to do is look up documentaries about the intelligence of
dolphins. I looked up in Netflix if there was any. Sadly there was none then I looked up in
YouTube the intelligence of a dolphin and it lead me to a video called The Intelligence of
Dolphins and when I saw how short it was I thought it would be a bad video but actually this
documentary was very worthwhile to see. I encourage people who are interested to watch this
video. It showed me so many interesting things within a 30 minute video and I decided to just
talk about three of the interesting things dolphins do. One of them was a technique dolphins use
when human were testing them. The humans put a machine on the ocean floor and it spits out air
bubble rings. You probably think what that has to do with testing their intelligence. Well, a lot of
animals dont show curiosity like dolphins. When the fishes saw this ring bubble popping out
they quickly swam to the opposite direction. When they did that test to the dolphins they started
to use echolocation which means they use echo (sonar) to locate things. Echolocation is like
playing the game marco polo. The sound they make bounces off an object and it creates an image
in their mind. Anyways they used it and first stared at it then a dolphin started to bite it and the
other dolphins saw the dolphin that bit it and started to do it too. Later they started to make a
game of it and made up their own way to pop the bubble: they used their dorsal fins, tails, and
they even went through the rings. The other interesting thing I found in this documentary was
how they manipulate stingrays to capture their prey. When a dolphin is in a situation where there
are long sea grass it usually means they cant rely on their echolocation because the grass is
interfering it, but they know that there are preys hiding in the sea grass so they follow a stingray
carefully because stingrays have a lethal barb in their tail. They follow stingrays because they
have something unique which is, electroreceptors (feel things below them) which can help the
dolphins capture their prey. While the stingray is using its electroreceptors the dolphin is beside

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them. When a stingray finds a prey it flaps its wing-like fins to make the prey get out of the long
sea grass and meanwhile the dolphins keep a close eye to see if any preys are swimming away. If
it does then the dolphins captures it while the stingray sadly gets nothing and they just used their
unique powers for nothing. Another fascinating thing is that when they are with a lot of dolphins,
called pods it is hard to communicate. Instead of using echolocation they use the water as a
communication by making different smacking sounds which means different things and they also
use this method with humans. In Brazil fisherman come to the beach with their big fishing nets
and wait for dolphins to come because dolphins help them capture fishes. When the dolphin
comes they know exactly what to do. They wait for the dolphin to tell them where there are a lot
of fishes by smacking its tail in the water. When the dolphin smack its tail the fishermen's throw
their nets in that same location. It helps both the dolphin and fishermen get food. If a fish jumps
out of the water to get out of the net the dolphin is there to eat it. These were very useful to my
question. It takes a lot of thinking to do what dolphins do. Humans also can communicate with
dolphins by blowing a whistle and hand gestures which I will talk about later.
My second source is to find a Ted Talk about how dolphins and there was and it is called
How smart are dolphins? Lori Marino. She talked about how dolphins capture their prey (Fig,
1), the encephalization quotient which is their brain size (Fig. 2), the dolphin sponge club (Figure
3), and rescuing human beings. When there are pods of dolphins that want to eat fish one dolphin
takes its tail and makes a mud wall so that the fishs only way is to go up. The other dolphin calls
out to the others to say, hey help us catch some fish! they work together and it is a fascinating
way how they thought about that. Dolphins have a way to socialize with their own kinds and
build up team-work. Encephalization quotient (EQ) is the brain size of a dolphin; she
demonstrated that the EQ of a dolphin is close to a humans EQ. The dolphins have an EQ of 4.2

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and humans have an EQ of 7.0. This shows that dolphins are close to our EQ than any other
animals because animals regular EQ are 1.8-2.3. I had to find the exact ratio in another website.
The sponge club mostly occurs in Sydney Australia. Corals can damage the dolphin's rostrum
which is the nose and dolphins have created a way where it cant hurt them. They place a sponge
in their rostrum and pass through the corals without getting hurt. This requires a lot of thinking
and I would have never guessed that dolphins do that. They use items in the ocean to make them
as tools. Dolphins rescue humans. In the video it said, Some of the most amazing things about
dolphins are their senses of empathy, [selflessness], and attachment. They use their senses to
rescue humans who are drowning. Dolphins bring the human up the surface so they can breathe.
They also mourn for another's death which shows a lot of empathy. This reminds me of watching
this video somewhere that I cant remember showing a dolphin carrying its dead calf for about
three-four days. All of these show what makes the dolphin smart by thinking, emotions, their EQ,
and using items for implements.
My third source is typing how dolphins are smart in google and it lead me to a video in
YouTube called Dolphins Reacting to Mirror Underwater and I found this very engaging
because I have never heard or thought about this. This experiment really did give me a surprise
answer. This person tapes a mirror outside of the dolphins tank. The mirror is designed to let the
person see the reaction of the dolphin. Kind of like an investigation room. Once they stick it in
the dolphins tank the dolphins realize it and they take a look at themselves. It is quite funny
what they do and how they react to it. They touch the mirror with their heads and move their
bodies and once they did these things they knew that they were looking at themselves so they
turn upside down and blow bubbles out of their blowhole to see how they look like. It is clear
that dolphins are very curious. The video also said that they try it on other animals and some

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recognize and others dont but what makes the dolphins unique about it is reacting to this test is
that they actually go more in depth. When I mean more in depth I mean they do what other
animals dont. Curiosity is a strong inclination to learn or know something. This shows us that
dolphins do want to learn.
My fourth source is to go to a dolphin research center website and email them the
questions I had for them but there were some technical issues. Rather than emailing them I
looked at their research they posted and see which ones tie to my question. When I went to their
website to see their research I remembered hearing about this experiment and found it very
interesting. It mostly talks about their sonar. When I clicked on their research bar it lead me to a
link and it was a research paper about 15 pages. I did not want to read those 15 pages instead I
found a video that talks about it in YouTube. Two people were making body gestures and
whistling at two dolphins to do tricks. When they do the trick they are rewarded (Fig 4). To make
things more intriguing they decided to put these soft lenses things in one of the dolphins eyes to
see if they can copy the other dolphins movement. It is like a blindfold for the dolphins. It was
in fact very successful because the blindfolded dolphin used sonar to sense the other dolphin
movement. Sonar helps dolphins mimic other movements too and this shows what makes a
dolphin smart.
My fifth resource is a dolphin book. I was at the library doing my U.S. Government
homework when the thought came to me that I should read a book about dolphins. I asked the
librarian if she could help me find some and she did. She told me that there werent any dolphin
books for adults but for kids and I told her that I didnt want a children book because it wouldnt
help with my research project but she insisted. I had negative thoughts about the dolphin children
book. I read it and it really wasnt bad I was expecting pictures of dolphin and a cute story plot

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for kids. The author Tammy Gange first started off with a story about a little kid name Davide
and his father went boating. The kid fell in the water and he did not know how to swim. His
father did not notice but luckily a dolphin did. The dolphin carried Davide to the surface to let
him breathe just like my second resource said but this tells an actual story. It talks about the
social life of dolphins and how they always work together to protect themselves and others from
predators and if a dolphin is about to give birth all the males protect her. This is similar to the
human life because we work together too and we have a high social life. According to her,
Dolphins can stay awake for up to two weeks at a time. They rest part of their brain while the
other part stays active. Being partly alert allows dolphins to spot sharks and other predators
before they attack (Gange p.17-16). She talked about how a dolphins brain weighs three and a
half pounds and she mentions, That is 25 percent heavier than the brain of a human. Gange tells
an amusing story. It is about a professor named, Stan Kuczaj and how she trained her dolphins to
pick up any items that were tossed and later he would give the dolphins a reward (fish). He
noticed a female dolphin name Kelly grabbing items that were tossed by tourist and hiding it
underneath a drain cover. She would get the item that she hid and would give it to the professor.
She tried to get a reward.
My sixth resource somewhat answers my question but it specifies how dolphins see
underwater because I was confused on how dolphins see underwater. Do they see with both their
eyes and ears or is it only their ears? I figured that this would tie nicely to my fourth resource and
it did. I found this in google and in big words it demonstrated a picture of a dolphin and above it
said Camp Google which I have never heard of but I clicked on it because it captured my eyes.
The insight of this short 5 minute video talked about how dolphins see by using both their eyes
and ears. Two men were in this video Andy and Kurt Schwehr, he creates ocean maps and they

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get to interact with other marine animals like dolphins. He talked about echolocation and how the
dolphins send out click sounds and that the click makes a wave and then it bounces of an object
and comes back to the dolphin. They use their rostrum (nose) to point at the object. When the
sound comes back they feel the vibration in their jaw. He also mentioned an analogy with
echolocation and playing the game marco polo. Andy later shows the viewers a short activity on
how dolphins use echolocation. I will be using this for my presentation.
All of these sources were very valuable to my question what makes dolphins smart? I
dont consider any of the resources I found useless, I thought all of them were very helpful.
Although in a couple or more videos I saw, it repeated what other videos had already said and I
had leave some information. What makes dolphins smart is that they have an ability to teach
themselves, actually learn like we humans do and they later pass it on to their calf (baby
dolphin). They are also the only animal that has a close ratio brain to humans. Dolphins have a
4.2 while humans have a 7.0. How they capture their fishes by making a mud wall requires a lot
of critical thinking. They also have a way to communicate with us by splashing water and whats
very amazing is that we actually understand them and vice versa. Another one that I found
instimulating was the dolphin sponge club and how they use objects from their environment to
make it into something. There are so many ways dolphins are smart and I think just four big
reasons that I chose clarify that.

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Work Cited
Youtube Video: The Intelligence of Dolphins (Part 1,2 , & 3)
Youtube Video: How smart are dolphins? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05PpTqtGhGU
)
Youtube Video: DOLPHINS REACTING TO MIRROR UNDERWATER
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn6kJJfNLVA )
Youtube Video: Dolphin Research Center Blindfold Imitation Study (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wGP-nuaAgY)
Google: Google Camp How Do Dolphins See Underwater:
https://camp.withgoogle.com/activities/week1/how-do-dolphins-see-underwater
Gagne, Tammy. The Smartest Animals Dolphin. Minneapolis, MN: Abdo Consulting Group,
2014. Print

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