~a camellia bouquet~

A Monday morning, another camellia's near-perfect bloom.

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The morning has started with a flurry of e-mails, and not the kind that one would like to receive.  Yes, I'm in the midst of a firestorm, fortunately not in the center of it, but close enough to the fire to get singed.  Ahhhh...I need to make time to retreat into my lab.  The lab is a good place right now - busy, good-anxious, positive, funny.  The science is good.

~~~~~

So a former neighbor, Scott, sent me a link over the weekend which describes a recent article in New Scientist that made me smile a bit - regarding Amazon River dolphins and behavior and culture and 'gifts' of a very special kind.   From the David Byrne Journal post:

What is culture? In the NS article it’s described as a complex skill (or behavior) that is spread and maintained by social learning rather than being a genetically fostered behavior, or one that the local environment might simply encourage. This description defines by exclusion: culture isn’t the making of things or a certain set of behaviors, but depends on how those behaviors are learned and transmitted. You could have the best table manners in the world, but if they’re merely instinctual, then you’re not cultured. Others define culture as using things or behaviors symbolically — and by that definition these dolphins seem to qualify too. When applied to people, this umbrella definition of symbolic behavior includes codes and prescribed manners of dress, language, religion, rituals, etiquette, morality, cuisine, and on and on. Inevitably, some of those products of culture in dolphins will be invisible to us; we won’t be able to know their religion, if they have one — not now anyway.

It seems that in some populations of dolphins, that the males carry objects - weeds, sticks, clumps of sediment - and that, well, these 'accessories' help the male in the whole mating thing.  As the study goes on to say, the females do not carry these objects - but the fact that they recognize these accessories - and tend to 'go for' the men carrying the most interesting bouquet of seaweed (as an example) - suggests that she too must have some culture to even care.

Later in the post:

In the past, another way of excluding members from the culture club was tool use — for a long time it was assumed that only humans used or fashioned tools. Then chimps were seen carefully choosing thin sticks and fashioning them into tools for extracting delicious honey ants. After that, more and more examples of animal tool use were spotted and acknowledged. Even in dolphins, it turns out. In an inlet called Useless Loop (Useless Loop!!), dolphins pluck specifically shaped sea sponges and use them as protective gear when probing the ocean floor. Some of the scientists who have spotted the sponging behaviors claim it is learned socially — the dolphins teach their kids how to sponge — which qualifies this kind of tool use as a form of culture.

This morning I am not doing the post (nor the original New Scientist article) justice - I'm distracted and need to be doing other things.  But I did want to make note of it - simply because I enjoy things that change our view of (and place in) the world and our perceptions of it.  It is also quite sweet to think of a male dolphin, scouring his environs for a clump of seaweed - to think of a male dolphin accessorizing as he goes about his day (but then I've always been a sucker for a bouquet of beautiful seaweed). 

Imagine the pressure. 

Imagine what a bouquet of camellias might get him!

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Time to get back to it.

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(An aside:  I am in conflict about all of this, you do know that, don't you?  Cultural perceptions, expectations - there is something inherently sweet about a bouquet of seaweed, but I recognize that those 'in the know' about where that seaweed is are infinitely more successful then the male dolphin carrying a stick around.  There's something all too familiar here, isn't there?)  

Comments

[kate]

Good post. My first thought though was, where there any éclairs to begin the day?

It's incredible that dolphins have the same sort of behaviours as humans and chimps. Rather discouraging too.

[Les]

Thank you for the post. I did not know that David Byrne had a site and that he spoke of dolphins. He is a demi-god in our home.

Thanks!
Les

[Kim]

As an encouraging addendum to your aside: I'm sure that there are enough girls who would appreciate a good stick for that other dolphin to attract. Maybe they're not all sponge-diggers as one might assume? :)

[Pam]

Kate, there have still be no eclairs. There has been, however, some promising data - so for now I will have to compromise...as for dolphins and humans being similar: evolution is a mysterious thing.

Les, you are quite welcome. It looks like an interesting site.

Kim: Yes, I am quite fond of a good stick myself! Yes, that was encouraging I think.