A Clever New Fishing Method, 'Conching,' is the Latest Trend Spreading Among Australia's Hippest Bottlenose Dolphins

We know dolphins have a language, they name their young, they hold grudges, they have sex for fun, they use tools, the navy trains them for this and that, is it really hard to think that they know how to plan something out?

I can only wait until we come up with a SeaQuest 2032 style dolphin to english translator so we can hear all the stories and information dolphins can share with us!

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

Someone needs to get a video of this stat.

dolphins are truly quite remarkable. the irony of the situation is that people have been looking for intelligent life on other planets, and it's only until very recently that we've realized that dolphins are a form of intelligent life other than ourselves.
not that we should quit looking in space, just because dolphins may be as intelligent as us, doesn't mean that there aren't aliens.

why learn from your own mistakes, when you could learn from the mistakes of others?

In a few months we will see headlines that all of the dolphins have disappeared. A message will appear that say..."So long and thanks for all the fish!"

BTW, I cannot believe no one else posted this first.

Dolphins developing and spreading a new fad on porpoise, cool!

@-my name here-

Quote: "because dolphins may be as intelligent as us" lets not get ahead of ourselves. Dolphins are very intelligent and are argueably the 2nd smartes creature on this planet, but the distance in intelligence between us and them is very very very very very very very very very vast.

What a facinating animal! To be able to plan, coordinate and use a tool is pretty cool. But then for a population to catch onto the fad is pretty wild indeed!

@army Juggernaut:
not only is the full extent of the dolphin's intelligence unknown, but I only said MAY be, not are.

why learn from your own mistakes, when you could learn from the mistakes of others?

Dang i'm disappointed, when i saw the thumbnail, I thought the dolphins were playing music with conches!

I want a pet dolphin to go shark hunting with

Scientists are beginning to think that whales and perhaps dolphins may be as or more intelligent than us-- not just based on brain size and wrinkles. Although their brain structure is different ( with a higher glia to neuron ration ) and they would probably "think" different than us, they have a very developed neocortex which is generally associated with high intelligence ( although there are exceptions )

Mr. Alien,
Arrogance humans still think they are special. Well this was another failed mission at finding truely intelligent life amongst the stars, guess we will have to keep looking. On to planet x124312 I hear they have some aquatic life spreading the trend of using shells to fish there too.

To elaborate on my last comment,

First to define intelligence in a way not associated with humans is required in order to test animals. A parrot that can add or dog that can pick out over 1000 nouns compared to humans that cannot distinguish more than 50 unique wolf nouns says they are smarter than us already, if we are talking about learning.
Compare a 2 year old dog to a 2 year old child, dogs learn to walk, eat, hunt, and various other things quicker than a human child (even speaking and potty training). Now add in no thumbs, dolphins must learn everything from peers, they don't have years of books to go through, or the hands to make realistic tools (yet they do use tools and can learn to use new ones quickly).
We are not all that, we just have the right set to progress our collective knowledge. There are many humans that are so ignorant and stupid it would be easy to say dirt is smarter than them.
Before we solidify ourselves as the smartest creatures on this planet, perhaps we should first truly define what that actually means and find a non-culturally bias way to test it. (I mean come on people have issues with bias in an IQ test, yet they feel good about thinking they are smarter than their pets.)

I suppose the most advance species is the one that is the least violent and imposes itself the least on others, while being self aware, highly able to learn and remember what it has learned, high communication skills in various manners and styles, adaptive to its environment and imaginative and artistic. Now what animal could this be, hmm? I suppose it could be human, but I think it would be a small minority of human, just to aquire the first 2 points.

My coworker says Cthulhu and I have to agree. But then we are getting into aliens again. (And it defies the whole peaceful section).

From a collective point of view we have more advanced technology, but I would argue this is not because of intelligence more than the combination of intelligence with opposable thumbs and the ability to manipulate our environment more than others.

On Collective Human Achievement (Technology):
Take the computer:
To make a computer work, you require the knowledge of several specialized individuals from electrical engineers to software engineers. Each individual may have some ideas how other parts of the computer work, but not enough to actually do the job.

Go back even 1000 years and one man could know a large portion of human knowledge, or at least all of the knowledge in any given field of study. Often scientists were not specialized or even formally scientists. Explorers, diplomats, nobles, people with leisure time to spend studying the writings of those before them.

As we specialize, our ability to get more done quicker increases, allowing for more leisure time (maybe not for everyone). More leisure means more time to think about things other than survival.

Basically this all comes together in a few points:
No one person has the sum of all human knowledge, not even a small fraction of it. You claim a human who has no clue how to make a wooden bit adder is smarter than a dolphin.

If we use technology as the basis of Intelligence then we can only measure cultures against each other. We cannot even say the human race, because there are still tribes that are not incorporated with society. So the globalized culture of humans is smarter than a culture of dolphins is the best you can state.

So lets say a new species evolves that has 10,000 times the brain power of your average human. They also have opposable thumbs or some other means to dramatically manipulate their environment. If it took humans 100,000 years to get where we are now, it would take them a hundred. Who is smarter? Obvious the humans are still because they have better toys. Sure in 100 years they will be smarter.

Dolphin: They have art, tool usage, and the ability to learn and evaluate (Thus what Joe dolphin seems to be working, lets give it a whirl, get that shell. They communicate with each other and can understand each other (and humans) better than humans can understand them. So learning to speak to aliens should start with learning to understand dolphins, and a few people are working on it. So again I ask, how do you measure intelligence?

The big question here is "why now"? Dolphins have been roaming the oceans for eons and all during that time none of them ever thought of picking up a shell and using it to catch fish. Now all of a sudden one dolphin starts using a shell to fish and the rest catch on? Something is fishy here...(pun intended)...

As us or aliens become smarter, so goes smaller all the other animals and the more disposable they become..... Smart does not guaranty morals, ethics, caring of others or animals of a lesser nature. Smart can even produce mischievous or eve bad. And of course the smart one does not perceive himself as being bad, ba-ha- .... ha!

I'm just bummed Cybegor beat me to the "So long and thanks for all the fish" line. Dang it.

First Sapiens should have been a dinosaur,but we know what happened to that plan,
secound are we and we all can give a million ways to our doom,

I think the third one will be these guys.....
════════════════════════════════════════════
why, mr. Anderson, why, why do you persist?
Because I Choose To...
Regards
════════════════════

My guess is Flipper was swimming around found a shell and was bored so he swam around trying to balance the shell. He luckily caught a fight, which annoyed him because it make the shell less balanced. Flippette his sister thought he was not being the lame trouble maker he usually is and was actually learning to fish in a new and creative way. She told her friends, and Marinesa her closest friend with her feminine ways came over to ask Flipper how to do it. Next thing you know it was the coolest thing in the ocean. All of the cool dolphins were doing it.

"so long and thanks for all the fish!!!"

So the dolphins understand that buoyancy and gravity effect things differently above the water. I would like to see somebody take our understanding of how we evolved and attempt to apply it to the dolphin. I understand it would obviously be different from species to species. But it would be interesting if it were taken seriously and not just some walking ( secret of the ooze) dolphin.

Maybe the aliens living at the bottom of are oceans are teaching the dolphins new tricks...

@blunder, The aliens at the bottom of the oceans are teaching the dolphins how to blow into shells and cause whirl wind water spouts, which in turn cause crop circles. Its how our human mafia works, they get some else to do the dirty work. This is why we humans will never catch the aliens making crop circles. And now you know... ;)

I for one, welcome our dolphin overlords.

I've always wanted to say that one.

Perhaps it’s just chance these shells have fish in them. It could be that the dolphins are blowing in them to summon their outer space alien friend’s hello and other communications; or maybe the dolphins have just learned out to make music and party! Woo! Hoo! Its another dolphin ho-down! Yee-Haw!

It's weird that they just figured this out. If that's the case of course. And not that we just hadn't noticed before.

It could be one of those leaps forward for a species. Like in 2001 when the monkey killed the other monkey with the bone in the beginning.

One would have to ask the question why did they start to fish like this, perhaps they have had to adapt to fishing this way because there is not enough large game to catch or perhaps its just an easy snack? or is it an easy snack?
Dolphins the second most intelligent creature on earth? I don't know, I've seen an Orangutan learn and use sign language with its trainer, and he could interact and have conversations of about a 2-3 year old human level & with the hormone level of a teenager, lol.
But the ability to speak and listen is not inelegance.
Nor is education inelegance, many people make this mistake thinking the two are the same when they are not. you can clearly see this in the human population where millions of people believe in deity's, ghosts, supernatural, pseudoscience, psychics etc... and many of them are willing to put the lives of others or their own lives at risk or just plane madness in these "beliefs", this is also not intelligence, just brain washing or lack of understanding and perspective.
Never the less...
Definition of intelligence copied and pasted just for you straight from the internet, wow got to love the net.
intelligence:
1. The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
2. The collection of information of military or political value.

I would like to also add a quote I like from Carl Sagan as I feel "Critical Thinking" should be right beside "acquire and apply knowledge".

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it’s a way of thinking, a way of skeptically integrating the universe, with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to integrate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs, for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along."

have a nice day ^_^

This may be an adaptive behavior caused by the dwindling populations of larger fish. Over fishing and pollution from mankind have changed the dolphin's environment in a very short amount of time. That they've evolved so quickly to using a new method is amazing.

One would have to ask the question why did they start to fish like this, perhaps they have had to adapt to fishing this way because there is not enough large game to catch or perhaps its just an easy snack? or is it an easy snack?
Dolphins the second most intelligent creature on earth? I don't know, I've seen an Orangutan learn and use sign language with its trainer, and he could interact and have conversations of about a 2-3 year old human level & with the hormone level of a teenager, lol.
But the ability to speak and listen is not inelegance.
Nor is education inelegance, many people make this mistake thinking the two are the same when they are not. you can clearly see this in the human population where millions of people believe in deity's, ghosts, supernatural, pseudoscience, psychics etc... and many of them are willing to put the lives of others or their own lives at risk or just plane madness in these "beliefs", this is also not intelligence, just brain washing or lack of understanding and perspective.
Never the less...
Definition of intelligence copied and pasted just for you straight from the internet, wow got to love the net.
intelligence:
1. The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
2. The collection of information of military or political value.
I would like to also add a quote I like from Carl Sagan as I feel "Critical Thinking" should be right beside "acquire and apply knowledge".
"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it’s a way of thinking, a way of skeptically integrating the universe, with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs, for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along."
have a nice day ^_^

now if dophins could learn how to control spammers and bots we can call it a day lol

awesome stuff, cool stuff to watch animals use tools in unknown ways, i.e. a raven using a bent paper clip to get food, stick for termites, etc. cool stuff

Obviously "Monty Python" was wrong ....
There IS intelligent life down here on earth!