MOSART and ELVIS

In January 2007, colleagues from Sweden joined Dudzinski during data collection at Dolphin Encounters for an exiting new research collaboration. Drs. Mats Amundin and Christer Blomqvist, and two of Mats’ graduate students, joined DCP at Dolphin Encounters to implement use of the MOSART tag (housed in pec packs worn by dolphins) and their newly designed and built ELVIS system.

Captive & Wild Dolphins – A Comparison

A Brief History
Over 35 Species of cetacean have been maintained in artificial environments since the early 1860’s.  While descriptions of specific behaviors were first provided by Townsend (1914), the majority of information collected on captive dolphins has focused on collection, transport, husbandry and medicine (Defran & Pryor, 1980). One would also expect to find a rich literature on species-typical or comparative behaviors of captive cetaceans; however, the published accounts for this topic are limited in number.

Calf Associations with Conspecifics

Association patterns: Measuring frequency, duration and proximity between dolphin calves and associates in Roatan, Honduras and Bimini, The Bahamas

Dolphin calves typically bond with other individuals in the group in which they live.From these associates, calves learn survival skills and social behaviors such as foraging,play behaviors, and signals used to share information as well as the overall socialstructure of the group. During the Dolphin Communication Project’s data collection,calves of three delphinid species have been observed to associate with different individual dolphins, not limited to their mothers. A few researchers (Herzing, 1990;Mann, Janet; Masaki, et al.

Interspecies Interaction

Interspecific interactions and hybridization in marine mammals
Interspecific interactions, mating attempts and hybridization have been observed in both terrestrial and marine populations (Baird et al. 1998).  Hybridization among marine mammals is a little understood, but increasingly observed, phenomenon between unrelated yet overlapping populations (Baird et al. 1998, Dohl et al. 1974, Herzing et al. 1997).  This research documents interactions, particularly mating behaviors, between common bottlenose (Tursiops truncatus) and Atlantic spotted (Stenella frontalis) dolphins off Bimini, The Bahamas and examines the possible mechanisms driving these interactions.

Eavesdropping

Do dolphins eavesdrop on the echolocation signals of other dolphins?
It has been suggested that dolphins are able to eavesdrop on the echolocation signals of other dolphins, and, by doing so, are able to acquire object and environmental information without needing to use their own echolocation. This is known as the ‘echoic eavesdropping’ hypothesis. According to the results of one experiment, it appears that this might indeed be something that dolphins are capable of doing.

Pectoral Fin Study

Update: Spring 2009
The most recent paper on our pectoral fin contact study was published in Behavioural Processes early this year. The PDF is posted to the Publications page of our web site.
How & Why do Dolphins use their Pectoral Fins? Are there single or multiple functions for flipper contact?
Dr. Dudzinski is examining how dolphins exchange pectoral fin contact.

The MVA

The Mobile Video/Acoustic System – MVA
(a.k.a. “array”)
The mobile video/acoustic system (MVA) was developed to permit real-time synchronous recording of the sounds and behaviors of individual, free-swimming dolphins. Manually operated under water, the system consists of two omni-directional hydrophones cabled through a custom underwater housing into a stereo video camera. Hydrophone spacing on the housing is scaled to the human inter-aural distance based upon the speed of sound in water (4.5 times faster than in air).