Trent University Biology 415b Marine Mammals

Signature Whistles of

Tursiops truncatus

Dolphins live in unique societies, in which there are several subgroupings of individuals. The groups are fluid, with smaller subgroups being more stable. The stability of the subgroups is thought to promote social bonds between individuals. Individuals within these groups are often out of sight of each other, and therefore need a way of maintaining communication.

Dolphins produce three types of sounds: broadband clicks used in echolocation; broadband burst pulses; and whistles. Whistles are frequency modulated narrow bands of sound, which are thought to be used as a nametag for each individual dolphin (Caldwell, Caldwell and Tyack 1990). Caldwell et al. (1990) described a hypothesis in which captive dolphins would produce individually distinctive and stereotyped whistles. These whistles were named signature whistles due to their individually distinctive features.

This webpage will discuss the structure and possible function for signature whistles in the bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus. Various suggestions for the use of signature whistles have been developed, one of which is that signature whistles enable bottlenose dolphins to maintain a complex social structure, due to their ability to communicate and identify one another.

Index

Social Structure of Tursiops truncatus

Male Paired Associations

Structure of Signature Whistles

Function of Signature Whistles

References

This page is maintained by

Christina Adams

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