A Captive Beluga Whale Living With Dolphins Swapped Her Language For Theirs

[ashling]

She's just trying to fit in.
MICHELLE STARR 3 NOV 2017

A captive beluga whale has done something amazing: she has seemingly "learned" another language and adopted it over her own.

The whale, then four years old, started making whistling sounds unique to dolphins and dropping her own beluga vocalisations after being housed with bottlenose dolphins for only two months.

[democratisphere]

1. Animals are so damn smart. Great story!

Communicating with others is a matter of survival.
Thanks for this ashling!

[Amaryllis]

9. ANd how inspiring in this age of ... impaired communication.

[sl8]

2. Interesting.

Thanks for posting.

Link to story:
https://www.sciencealert.com/beluga-whale-bottlenose-dolphin-learns-new-language


It reminds me of this story, from a couple of years ago:

The Story of One Whale Who Tried to Bridge the Linguistic Divide Between Animals and Humans

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/story-one-whale-who-tried-bridge-linguistic-divide-between-animals-humans-180951437/

[3catwoman3]

3. How utterly...

...fascinating!

[StarryNite]

4. I love this!!!

Thank you for sharing.

[Demoiselle]

8. Me,too! How wonderful...

[Ysabel]

5. wonderful !!!

[Rhiannon12866]

6. K&R! Fascinating story! Thanks for posting!

[billh58]

7. It is an amazing discovery, but

why is such an intelligent creature a "captive?" What was her crime?

[relayerbob]

10. Freedom, of course

[billh58]

11. Now she has freedom

from the open ocean, her species, and her family.

[pansypoo53219]

12. it needed to chat. snub nosed dolphin.

[TNNurse]

13. Interesting but why are all of them captive?