The scientists also cited research suggesting young dolphins deliberately make their games as hard as possible, possibly to enhance the learning experience. The captive dolphins “produced 317 distinct forms of play behavior during thefive years that they were observed,” they wrote. One calf became adept at “blowing bubbles while swimming upside-down near the bottom of the pool and then chasing and biting each bubble before it reached the surface,” the researchers continued. “She then began to release bubbles while swimming closer and closer to the surface, eventually being so close that she could not catch a single bubble.”

I love this story for obvious reasons. It's a great endorsement of the idea that play may be crucial to advanced forms of learning, not just among the primates. But I suppose there's also the crankier interpretation: that any sufficiently intelligent species will inevitably use that intelligence to waste their time in increasingly baroque ways.

Dolphin games: no mere child’s play?

Comments

[risser]

I think this new style is fantastic. I don't have much time to surf, but knowing that almost anything you find interesting, I'd also find interesting, means that simple tags like this are invaluable to increasing the general happiness of my day.

For whatever that's worth.

I love the mini-posts. Thanks for taking the time to drop them out into the ether.

[risser]

By the way, I had no idea, as your self-blurb suggests, that your four books are also residing in Park Slope. Perhaps you and your books could get together for brunch.

[france]

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