Run in Terror! They're Learning, PART II

Jesus fucking christ! NOT AGAIN! They're learning again - first it's tools (see: http://whydolphinssuck.blogspot.com/2008/07/run-in-terror-theyre-learning.html), now it's tail walking. The full article and link is below, but here's the gist of it:

A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity.

This does not bode well for myself, nor mankind as a whole. If they're now mastering tail walking in the wild, how long until they learn REAL walking? And once that starts the next step is opposable thumbs and Kalashnikov rifles. I mean if some Hutu can get a hold of 34 dozen AK-47's, how hard can it be for the dolphin militia to buy some black market Chinese knock-off assault rifles? Not hard, I should think considering I have like 19 of them and I'm not even 13 years old yet. OK - that was a lie - I have 14 Soviet made killing implements. One more than my age, of 13. Because I'm thirteen and I like candy and windowless vans with murals of dragons on the side. Sure mister, I'd love a lollipop!

Wow - that got dark quickly. Sorta went Amber Alert pretty fast there.

Back on track. Dolphins walking. This is bad fucking news. And since it's from the BBC, there has to be some sort of commie-pinko-red plot in the dissemination of this information. It's as if they're consciously trying to hip the dolphins to the fact that they're special little fishes. And yes, I said "hip {them} to the fact" because that's how I jive.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to jam with Mingus and Bird. If by "jam" you mean "put fire under spoon, wrap arm, inject" then yes, jam.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7570097.stm

Wild dolphins tail-walk on water

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website

The tail-walking dolphins were spotted at the coast near Adelaide

A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity.

The tail-walking group lives along the south Australian coast near Adelaide.

One of them spent a short time after illness in a dolphinarium 20 years ago and may have picked up the trick there.

Scientists studying the group say tail-walk tuition has not been seen before, and suggest the habit may emerge as a form of "culture" among this group.

"We can't for the life of us work out why they do it," said Mike Bossley from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), one of the scientists who have been monitoring the group on the Port River estuary.

"We're doing systematic observations now to determine if there's something that may trigger it, but so far we haven't found anything," he told BBC News.

Rich culture

In the 1980s, Billie, one of the females in the group, spent a few weeks in a local dolphinarium recovering from malnutrition and sickness, a consequence of having been trapped in a marina lock.

It would seem that among the Port River dolphins we may have an incipient tail-walking culture Mike Bossley

She received no training there, but may have seen others tail-walking.

Now, other females in the group have picked up the habit. It is seen rarely in the wild, and the obvious inference is that they have learned it from Billie.

"This indicates that they do learn from each other, which is not a surprise really, but it does also seem that they exhibit elements of what in humans we would call 'cultural' behaviour," said Dr Bossley.

"These are things that groups develop and are passed between individuals and that come to define those groups, such as language or dancing; and it would seem that among the Port River dolphins we may have an incipient tail-walking culture."

The "cultural" transmission of ideas and skills has been documented in apes, while dolphins off the coast of Western Australia are known to teach their young to use sponges as an aid when gathering food.