A bottlenose dolphin named Maui has learned to play a computer game that is helping scientists create a unique language they hope both humans and dolphins will understand. Words in this new language are whistled. Dolphins typically whistle to each other underwater, through a special structure just beneath their blow holes.
Researchers say the sounds have meaning.
For example, each dolphin learns its own signature whistle from its mom. Ken Marten and his team at Earthtrust and Sea Life Park Research laboratory in Hawaii want to better understand how dolphins communicate. After studying dolphin whistles, Marten invented distinct whistles for various objects with which the dolphins were familiar. It can take awhile. Marten even has a little puppet dolphin, the teacher's pet so to speak, to entice the dolphin to whistle back.