Dolphins are a truly amazing animal… nobody fully knows how they communicate, or how much of their brains they are able to utilize, but some of the most fascinating facts about dolphins are those that deal with communication.
Dolphins use echolocation, or ‘sonar’. With this ability, a dolphin could construct a precisely detailed auditory image of its surroundings, from a millimeter-thin wafer nearby to a fish or another dolphin four or five miles away, even in the murkiest of waters. The image is as distinct as that afforded by human sight – the acoustic perception centers of the dolphin’s brain are as large, and complexly developed, as the human visual cortex. Using an echolocation scan, a dolphin can clearly “see” an entire three-dimensional landscape beneath the water.
Since flesh, being mainly water itself, is also permeable to the dolphins’ sonar beams, they can observe an X-raylike image of the internal organs and skeletal structure of the creatures around them, dolphin, fish, or human. Taking this one step further, it is likely that if a dolphin can send out a beam of concentrated high-frequency sound, and then translate the returning reflection of the beam into a well-defined, holographic image of its environment, why couldn’t a dolphin use the same stereophonational organs to transmit an original wave of sound purposefully altered so that it already contains the same type of shape-size information as one of their reflections – in other words, send a picture.
If humans could somehow find a way to “develop” the pictures of sonar echolocation, imagine the world of knowledge that could be gleaned from this amazing species…
Dolphins – People of the Sea
Dolphin Research Center
The Society for Marine Mammalogy
The Oceania Project – The Oceania Project, established in 1988, is a Not-for-profit, Research and Information organisation
dedicated to Raising Awareness about Cetacea (Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises) and the Ocean Environment.
Wild Dolphin Project – The Wild Dolphin Project is a scientific research organization that studies and reports on a specific pod of free-ranging Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis). Objectives of this long-term, non-invasive field research are to gather information on the natural history of these dolphins, including behaviors, social structure, communication, and habitat; and to report what they have learned to the scientific community and the general public.
Dolphins and Man… Equals? – An essay by Regina Blackstock (written May 1970).