Meanwhile, “Dolphins have been known to detect certain types of cancer and pregnancy in some people,” WJHG reports, “But experts say there is no clinical research to back up those behaviors.
If a dolphin wants to be left alone, she will generally slap her tail on the surface of the water or will swim away. Humans in the water should take notice of these warning signals and keep clear.
A lot of their behaviour “demonstrates that they are at least aware of the plight of others”. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of dolphins being able to sense a woman's pregnancy or pick up on cancerous growths in the humans who swim with them.
Dolphins are well known for their acoustic sense and being able to communicate over several kilometres underwater. Now researchers at the University of St Andrews have found that they also have a unique sense of taste that allows them to identify family and friends without seeing or hearing them.
Dolphins are as sensitive to pain as humans, but when inflicted with serious wounds scientists believe they are able to produce natural morphine-strength painkillers that are nonaddictive.
Especially after shark bites, wounds in dolphins do not only heal surprisingly quickly. They can even rebuild missing tissue, like blubber, thus restoring their normal body contour. Blubber is not just a layer of fat. It is a highly specialized tissue with an organized structure.
Dolphins saving people
No one knows why, but dolphins have been saving people for thousands of years. Dating back to Ancient Greece, there are dozens of claims of dolphins rescuing people from sharks, helping drowning sailors, and guiding boats through rough waters.
Perhaps their mating behaviour does not point to what we typically perceive as “love”, but the indication of dolphin friendship and affection certainly demonstrates a capacity for the emotion to some degree. In several surprising instances, dolphins have also shown loving emotions towards humans.
Using echolocation, dolphins might be able to detect a pregnant woman's developing fetus, some experts say. Dolphins emit sounds in their environment and listen to the echoes that return — a process that helps them identify the shapes and locations of objects.
It is sensationalized information that the animals become aggressive towards pregnant individuals - it is simply untrue. Dolphins' echolocation gives them the ability to detect if a woman is pregnant in the water, and the ability to see the baby and heartbeat.
Hard bumping with the head and charging are aggressive signals dolphins use to ward off competing males during mating periods. On the other fin, gentle bumping and touching are signs of affection.
However, several species are known to be extremely cancer resistant. These include the naked mole rat, blind mole rat, elephant and bowhead whale. The age of onset of cancer also varies greatly depending on the lifespan of the species.
In reality, dolphins have saved humans on many occasions. In two (sort of) similar incidents, one in 2004 and one in 2007, pods of dolphins circled imperiled surfers for over thirty minutes in order to ward off aggressive great white sharks.
DON'T push the animal back out to sea!
Stranded marine mammals may be sick or injured. Returning animals to sea delays examination and treatment and often results in the animal re-stranding in worse condition. DO stay with the animal until rescuers arrive, but use caution.
The ancient Greeks told stories of dolphins protecting sailors, and it even happened on an episode of Flipper. It isn't surprising that people are fascinated by this idea. Unfortunately, there just isn't any reliable evidence that it's true.
They're able to do this through a special ability called echolocation. Dolphins swim up to pregnant women and press their snouts against their bellies. They then loudly “buzz,” which is a kind of concentrated echolocation.
Your pets probably don't understand that in nine months a new baby will be joining your family, but dogs and cats do detect differences in your mood, posture, behavior, and body chemistry that clue them in to the enormous changes you're going through.
Dolphins can see babies in the womb using echolocation, similar to ultrasound technology. Both processes emit high-pitched pulses of sound (humans can't hear it) and listen to the echoes that bounce back to create a visual image of objects in space.
In fact, seven per cent of zoophiles (humans sexually attracted to animals) named dolphins as their preferred choice of mate. Some studies have also found evidence male dolphins are sexually attracted to women as they give off similar pheromones to female dolphins. You can find this story in My Bookmarks.
Dolphins are known for their exceptional cognitive abilities, and one of their most impressive skills is their memory. Dolphins have a remarkable long-term memory and can remember specific individuals, sounds, and even tasks they learned in the past.
Dolphins demonstrate the ability to do all of these things and most scientists agree that dolphins are very intelligent. They are notoriously talented mimics and quick learners; they demonstrate self-awareness, problem-solving, and empathy, innovation, teaching skills, grief, joy and playfulness.
As a child, you may remember squealing and screaming when you were excited about something. It turns out that humans aren't the only species that gets noisy when they're happy: New research shows that whales and dolphins “squeal with delight” to express glee, too.
Although dolphins may seem curious, many of their behaviors are often misinterpreted as “friendly” when they actually are, in fact, signs of disturbance or aggression. If a dolphin approaches you in the water, do not engage, pursue, or otherwise interact with the dolphin, and take immediate steps to move away.
The bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is one of the species known to use auditory (vocal) cues for individual recognition. They emit whistles that vary individually, and it has been suggested that those whistles, called signature whistles, are used for individual recognition (Janik 2000; Janik et al.