Washington — You know right away when someone is talking to an infant or young child. It turns out that dolphin moms also use a type of high-pitched baby talk.
A study published Monday found that female bottlenose dolphins change their vocalizations when addressing their calves. Researchers recorded the distinctive whistles of 19 mother dolphins in Florida when they were with their young and when swimming alone or with other adults.
The dolphin’s signature whistle is a unique and important signal – similar to calling your name.
“They use these whistles to keep track of each other. They keep saying from time to time, ‘I’m here, I’m here’,” said study co-author Lela Sayegh, a marine biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
According to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, when directing signals to her calves, the pitch of the mother’s whistle is higher and her pitch range is greater than normal.
“This was true for all the mothers involved in the study, all 19 of them,” said study co-author, biologist Peter Tyke of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Getting this data was no simple feat. Over more than three decades, scientists attached special microphones to the same wild dolphin mothers in Florida’s Sarasota Bay several times to record their signature whistles. This includes years when they had calves and when they didn’t—dolphin calves stay with their mothers in Sarasota for an average of three years, and sometimes longer. The father does not play a long role in parenting.
“This is phenomenal, absolutely fantastic data,” said marine biologist Mauricio Cantor of Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study. “This study is the result of a lot of research effort.”
Why people, dolphins or other creatures use baby talk isn’t certain, but scientists believe it may help the offspring learn to pronounce novel sounds. Research from the 1980s suggests that human infants can pay more attention to speech with a greater pitch range. Female rhesus monkeys can change their vocalizations to attract and retain the attention of offspring. And zebra finches raise their voices to address chicks and slow down their songs, which may make it easier for the birds to learn to sing.
For the dolphin study, the researchers focused only on the signature call, so they don’t know whether dolphins also use baby talk for other exchanges – or whether it helps their offspring learn to “talk”. does as it does with humans.
“It would make sense if bottlenose dolphins — a long-lived, highly acoustic species” — have similar adaptations, said Frants Jensen, a behavioral ecologist at Aarhus University in Denmark and a study co-author, where calves are used to communicate. Many sounds must be learned to speak. Author.
Another possible reason for using specific pitches is to attract children’s attention.
“It’s really important for a calf to know that ‘oh, mom is talking to me now’ __ rather than just announcing her presence to someone else,” said marine biologist Janet Mann of Georgetown University, who were not included in the study.
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