Quiz answers and some dolphin humor
IMAGE: Post dolphin-collision – see below for explanation
First things first, here are the quiz results. Quick off the mark were two talented contestants: Miki and Avalon, both of whom I will award top honors for their answers for this quiz.
The answers are (and/or could be):
1. The Orca or Killer Whale
2. Maurice Wilkins
3. Now this question was troublesome. I was looking for the answer “the moon”, but apparently there is a seamount off the coast of Casablanca with the name Ampere, as well as an elevated hill-type-thing in Brazil that could be considered a mountain. Doubtless there are many more Mt. Amperes scattered around the globe.
4. It should mean something like ‘OK?/No problem’, but due to my inadequate spelling, it might not have made much sense to you Japanese speakers. It should read “daijoubu”.
5. Bono
Right, back to business. We had an early morning boat trip today. The weather was terrifying around Motone (as to be expected), but we found 2 groups of subadult males who were frolicking in the high waves close to shore. More dolphin-surfing, and all sorts of rambunctious social activity. The absolute highlight was something I had never expected to see. Two dolphins were swimming around me and the camera at the same time, but not together. They both turned their heads to the side to echolocate on me at about the same time. Unfortunately for them, they were swimming towards each other without realizing it. Despite all of my previous talk about the ‘amazing sensory system of dolphins, and how they only ever bump into you if they mean to’, these two dolphins collided right in front of me! It was clearly an accident – they had not seen each other. After smashing into each other, one of the dolphins appeared rather indignant, got sore with the other, and chased him around for a bit with jaws wide open. I laughed pretty hard through my snorkel, and if dolphins have the ability to get embarrassed, then these two must have been mortified. No grace today – that was full on dolphin physical comedy.
-Justin