Another Throat-Punch For Amazon Dolphins

Amazonian dolphins say it with weeds

From correspondents in Paris
December 06, 2007 11:25am

A man may bring flowers to impress women, but male Amazon River Dolphins carry weeds to win over the opposite sex, UK and Brazilian researchers say.

The discovery comes from a three-year study of more than 6000 groups of dolphins in Mamiraua, a flooded rainforest reserve in the Amazonian, British weekly New Scientist reports in its next issue. Of these groups, 221 included at least one dolphin, usually a male, that carried an object, such as weed, a stick or clay. The groups also usually contained an adult female.

Aggression between adult males in the "object-carrying groups" was far higher than in other groups, which points to the carrying behaviour being a sexual display rather than a form of play, said the researchers.

The interpretation is backed by genetic analyses of tissue samples collected from adults and calves that suggests some of the most frequent object-carriers are among the most successful fathers.

Only humans and chimps are known to do anything similar as a show of prowess to win over a mating partner. The research, led by Tony Martin of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Vera da Silva of Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research, was presented last week at a conference on marine mammals in South Africa last week.

AFP

It would just kill these landscum scientists to SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE, instead of imputing human motives to everything they see us doing. When I read something like this, I just want to scrape it off my skin, you know?