Dolphins develop brains by communication needs higher than other species

According to scientists, dolphins and whales develop large, complex brains because they need to communicate and build a complex society.

We already know the human brain evolved over tens of thousands of years to meet the needs of processing increasingly complex information in our society. This process called "encephalization" helps people with a large brain (compared to body size) to help us communicate, cooperate, consensus, and empathize with each other.

However, scientists have recently published a study in Nature Ecology & Evolution magazine that smart marine mammals like dolphins and whales also develop large brains because of a need like them. me.

Some dolphins also have the ability to create personal symbols, to distinguish each individual in the community.

Michael Muthukrishna, an economic psychologist at the London School of Economics (UK), is the co-author of the study, saying the team used two interrelated theories - the Green-Society hypothesis and Cultural Hypothesis. - to conduct research and make predictions about the relationship between brain size and the social and behavioral organization that pigs will perform.

They then used data from previous studies targeting 90 different whales and dolphins to create a comprehensive database of brain size, social structure and cultural behavior. of these marine mammals.

Research results show that dolphins have a community, complex communications and they play and hunt together because of their mutual benefits and they can even cooperate with other species, like humans. Some dolphins also have the ability to create personal symbols, to distinguish each individual in the community. Finally, brain size shows the relationship in the breadth of social and cultural behaviors of these organisms. So the researchers concluded that there is a link between the level of brain development and the social structure of dolphins.

"The clear co-development of the brain, the social structure and the behavioral abundance of marine mammals is unique and prominent in parallel with the big brain and human society and the Primate species on land, " said lead author Susanne Schultz.

However, there is a big difference between humans and dolphins that the evolution of human brains will continue for a long time while dolphins are limited because of their physical abilities.

"Unfortunately, they will never imitate us to build megacities or build advanced technologies because they don't develop the front limb to become hands," Ms Schultz said.

This new study is particularly significant for studies of human behavioral evolution. We used to know that our distant relative primates have developed larger, more sophisticated brains when their social construction needs increase. But the dolphin also tends to develop like this, showing that this is the key development of species.