Dolphins
This reading profile brings together 6 source-linked articles that reference dolphins.
Explore Fauna’s source-checked field guides and research articles covering dolphins, or search the species catalog below for individual species profiles.Source-linked reading
- Field guideHow dolphins sleep with half their brainDuring unihemispheric sleep, strong slow waves occupy one cerebral hemisphere while the other remains in a more wake-like state. The sides alternate over time; this is neither total wakefulness nor a neat division in which exactly half of every brain system switches off.
- Field guideCute but dangerous: animals not to approachWanting to touch a wild animal is not foolishness; it is a wired response to a set of physical features, and it fires whether or not the animal is safe. The animals below are all things people reach for. Their defences run from a venomous ankle spur to a virus with an 80 per cent untreated fatality rate, and almost none of them are visible until they are used.
- Field guideDo elephants have names?Machine learning applied to hundreds of elephant rumbles recorded in Kenya could predict which elephant a call was meant for, and elephants perked up when they heard calls originally addressed to them. Because the callers do not seem to imitate the receiver's voice, the labels look more like human names than like dolphin whistles.
- Field guideConvergent evolution explainedCacti and some euphorbias independently evolved succulent, spiny forms in dry habitats; wings, streamlined bodies, and camera-like eyes offer other examples at different scales. Establishing convergence requires a phylogeny and evidence that similarity arose separately rather than being inherited unchanged from a common ancestor.
- Field guideHow whale songs travelA singing whale sets seawater particles oscillating, launching sound that spreads, bends, reflects, and weakens. Low-frequency components can travel especially well, yet no song has one fixed range: the ocean changes the signal, and a listener must still detect it above the background.
- Field guideWhy animals playLook for actions that are modified from their ordinary function, repeated but not rigid, initiated in relatively relaxed conditions, and balanced by signals or self-handicapping; compare sequences before labeling them play.