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Vocal exchanges of signature whistles in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)

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Abstract

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) produce individually distinctive vocalizations—referred to as “signature whistles”—that are thought to function as an individual and conspecific recognition system for maintenance of consistent contact between individuals. Observations and playback experiments were conducted at aquariums to study these whistle–vocal exchanges in bottlenose dolphins. Temporal patterns of vocalization were examined by analyzing the intercall intervals between two consecutive whistles. When a second individual produced a call that was different from the first individual’s vocalization, most of these calls were shorter than 1 s. However, when two consecutive calls were produced by the same individual, the second call rarely occurred within 1 s of the first. These results suggest that a second whistle may be produced by a different caller in response to the first whistle; however, in the case of an absence of a response, the first caller is likely to give further whistles. The results of this acoustic analysis show that the dolphins used in this study mostly used signature whistles during the recorded vocal exchanges.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank S. Hasegawa of Minamichita Beachland Aquarium, K. Matsuzaki of Shinagawa Aquarium, and T. Tobayama of Kamogawa Sea World, for allowing us the opportunity to study at the aquariums. We also thank the staff of the aquariums, who assisted with data collection for this study. We are grateful to M. Kashihara, Y. Asai, K. Kuroyanagi, H. Kobayashi and T. Kirihata for their suggestions and help during the study. We express our hearty thanks to Dr. M. Amano and Dr. T. Akamatsu for their valuable advice and discussions. The manuscript was improved by comments provided by Dr. L.S. Sayigh, Dr. A. Takemura, Dr. K. Kawaguchi, Dr. M. Terazaki, Dr. I. Aoki and anonymous reviewers. This study was supported by a research fellowship provided to F.N. from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists, and by the Scientific Research Fund of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan (No. 08-04531).

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  1. College of Community Development, Tokiwa University, 1-430-1 Miwa, Mito, Ibaraki, 310-8585, Japan

    Fumio Nakahara

  2. Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Nakano, Tokyo, 164-8639, Japan

    Nobuyuki Miyazaki

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  1. Fumio Nakahara
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  2. Nobuyuki Miyazaki
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Correspondence to Fumio Nakahara.

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Nakahara, F., Miyazaki, N. Vocal exchanges of signature whistles in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). J Ethol 29, 309–320 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-010-0259-4

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