Out of all the animal behavior research of social animals, one particular species’ has ended up in heated debates time and time again because of its presence in aquariums despite being one of the most encephalized aquatic mammals that still performs in Seaworlds. The results, hyperbolized or not, of these animals' captivity started to surface thanks to the controversial results of a NASA-funded experiment with the subject, “Peter,” a bottlenose dolphin being trained by humans in hopes of teaching him the English language. The experimenters’ knowledge of bottle-nosed dolphins’ complex social structures and encephalized neural make-up led them to believe that evolving their already advanced communication skills and speaking through blowholes would be the dolphins’ knee-jerk strategy to form a bond with a human. Next thing they knew, magazines left and right were publicizing scathing details of the “intimate” and “bestial” relationship between Peter and researcher, Margaret Howe. Dolphins, amongst elephants and great apes, show cognitively advanced social behaviors ranging from recognizing the size of an opposing coalition and deciding to retreat or attack all the way to emotional intelligence and inklings of culture.

Briefly on the evolution of dolphins and their cognition, dolphins evolved from a land dwelling mammalian, whose cognition is theorized to have remained unchanged even through their transition to an aquatic lifestyle (consisting mostly of anatomical changes), but not once their brain encephalized and developed attributes such as cortical adjacency (or close visual and audio processing, what allows them to practice echolocation) or adaptations to their high metabolic rate forcing them to sleep with one hemisphere of their brain awake (Connor 2007). Bottlenose dolphins’ social behavior is comprised of many unique qualities like coalitions, labeling of fellow coalition members, high emotional intelligence, and even using sex as a tool to not only to forge social bonds, but to harass and intimidate other dolphins (King & Janik 2013).

Dolphins’ demonstrate their alliances through coalitions like other animals, to avoid being preyed upon; however, like great apes and humans, they use their alliances to strategically hunt and have a more fluid and socially competitive structure, leading to a fission-fusion effect of dolphins immigrating and emigrating between coalitions. Amongst these coalitions stand from smallest to largest, first-tier, second-tier and super-alliances of over 15 dolphins that travel together and within each, dolphins exhibit two visible behaviors: “gentle rubbing” or touching of the pectoral fins and synchrony, seen often between the dolphins in the same tiers of alliances, but also in inter-alliance situations such as excited socializing as opposed to competitive situations (Connor 2007).

Another attribute recorded by researchers amongst these socially intelligent animals is their high emotional intelligence. Elephants, which have slightly more encephalized brains than dolphins, recognize bones of elephants they’ve befriended in the past and spend an abnormally long time investigating and waiting nearby. This was likely the key element to Peter, the dolphin’s bonding to Margaret Howe and why so quickly after they were separated, Peter’s health quickly deteriorated and his level of motivation drastically dropped. Alongside their vocalizations, the researcher can measure the physiological component to emotions through heart rate, and other responses, but dolphins present some limitations in psychological studies such as being incompatible with current FMRI technology, our main tool for measuring emotional response/activity in the usual amygdala, thalamus and rhinal cortex (Watanabe 2013). However, as we’ve seen from dolphins that are well versed in problem solving studies in captivity, dolphins exhibit relatively autonomous and curious behavior and show coinciding facial expressions at times too, making ethograms an auspicious study method. A behavior I mentioned before such as the gentle rub or bump between dolphins is being theorized as a mode of emotional expression; they tend to touch when they meet and when they part ways as if a greeting. We see a difference in these behaviors between females and males. Females touch with their pectoral fin to keep their offspring close and males elicit head butting during displays of aggression (Watanabe & Kuczaj 2013). Other cues are S-shaped posture made by a variety of dolphins often seen as precursors to aggressive displays (Watanabe & Kuczaj 2013).

Pertaining to both emotional intelligence and their coalitions, is bottlenose dolphin’s sexual behavior, that they seamlessly incorporate into their social lives. The most intriguing part of the relationship between Howe and her subject, Peter, was the developed attraction to her, not immediate. This signifies that with the emotional bond, the excitement initially from enrichment practices and socializing evolved to a sexual attraction. Whether just from overstimulation or from the emotional bond itself, studies show that dolphins can recognize themselves in mirrors, making us wonder, did Peter have any awareness of their differences (Reiss & Marino 2001)? This also raises more questions about their sexual preferences. Dolphins often use the behaviors seen directed towards the researcher Margaret to further social bonds and mate for pleasure, seen by this interaction and those between sexually immature dolphins. Given their coalitions, dolphins often mate in groups known as male reproductive alliances where they compete to fertilize the female. However, dolphins also use sex as a tool to some extreme measures merely to assert dominance in a variety of situations. Male bottlenose dolphins have been observed penetrating sexually immature female dolphins of different coalitions, harassing smaller males and even masturbating.

In retrospect, dolphins will likely stay the friendliest of cetaceans and hopefully provide us even more insight into animal behavior in connection to their emotions, sexuality and future role in the ocean and how they’ll handle our encroaching industry along with other social animals.