How Intelligent are Bottlenose Dolphins?
It is not a misconception that dolphins are one the most intelligent species of mammals in the world. Indeed their brain, in relation to the size of their body mass, is quite large. Measurements of true intelligence are rather subjective. After all, we cannot give dolphins an IQ test. What we can do is perform research that gives a good indication of dolphins’ level of understanding. What is known right now is that Bottlenose Dolphins are very social creatures and they also seem to be self-aware, that is they recognise themselves when viewing their image in a mirror (unlike dogs who usually think they’ve found a new playmate!). Dolphins are often trained to perform in marine parks. This is because they can comprehend both human language used to communicate with them as well as sounds that emulate the dolphins’ natural whistles. Studies in captivity have shown 75% accuracy results when dolphins were trained in response to human language questions requiring a “yes” or “no” answer. This a
