By Alice Klein.
Two bottlenose dolphins are in the Pacific Ocean.
The person is Andrey Nekrasov/Alamy.
The smell of a friend's perfume can be used as a mental representation of them, similar to how bottlenose dolphins can smell familiar individuals just by tasting their urine.
According to a study done by Stephen F. Austin State University, bottlenose dolphins spent about three times longer sampling water that contained urine from familiar dolphins compared with unfamiliar dolphins.
This sampling involved opening their mouths and running their tongues through the water as we poured the urine in front of them.
The signature whistles that bottlenose dolphins invent early in life are used to identify each other. The latest finding shows they can recognize each other in more than one way.
The dolphins were able to taste a friend's urine and hear their whistle at the same time, and they were able to investigate areas for longer.
It suggests that they have individual friends in their minds that connect their tastes and sounds. This is similar to how we have mental representations of our friends that integrate multiple elements like the smell of their perfume and the sound of their voice.
While that might sound easy to do for a human, animals don't always do that.
He says being able to identify other dolphins through urine is useful. Being able to detect potential mates is another advantage.
Dolphins often look at each other's genitals, which may give them an opportunity to sample each other's urine.
They don't have functional smell systems so they have to taste each other's urine.
bottlenose dolphins are the only species that can identify people based on taste alone. Other types of dolphins may do the same thing, but it will need to be explored in future research.
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