MetaFilter posts tagged with dolphin

2$, same as in town.

hermitosis — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:05:55 -0800

Dolphin-headed artist Nate Hill has riled his Brooklyn neighbors by delivering bags of candy crack in the wee hours, just like a real drug dealer (he has moved on from giving FREE BOUNCY RIDES).

Inside a bloody cultural tradition.

kanuck — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:49:49 -0800

TV star. Amusement park attraction. Mine sweeper. Stew meat. Funded by SGI & Netscape founder James Clark, award-winning documentary The Cove goes undercover for an inside look at the brutal slaughter of dolphins in the Japanese town of Taiji. Previously.

Pour another and you might see two

baphomet — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:27:12 -0800

No, you're not drunk, it's really a pink elephant. Pink dolphin unavailable for comment.

Dolphins caught on film making art and doing science.

Toekneesan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:51:07 -0800

Dolphins at SeaWorld Orlando make and play with bubble rings. Others learn by watching. (SLYP) via Checkout the related videos on the right to see other examples of this behavior.

"It was like he was cross-dressing in private -- an old man out there sponging by himself."

kliuless — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 06:50:22 -0800

I, for one, welcome our new loner female, tool-using dolphin overlords. from the article:

As best the researchers can tell, a single dolphin may have invented the technique relatively recently and taught it to her kin. The simple innovation dramatically changed their behavior, hunting habits and social life, the researchers found. Those that adopted it became loners who spend much more time on the hunt than others and dive more deeply in search of prey. The sponging dolphins teach the technique to all their young, but only the females seem to grasp the idea.

altho another article sez the technique confers no advantages. more broadly, i wonder if self-awareness is a necessary condition for tool use?

Get along, little...er, dolphie?

CitizenD — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:20:17 -0800

Dolphin Stampede. 58 seconds of unscripted, unexpected nature awesomeness. SLYT.

Whalesong and ocean sounds

Upton O'Good — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:26:56 -0800

The Jupiter Foundation and the Whalesong Project are both organizations which record humpback whale songs from floating buoys; some of their archived recordings can be found here, here, and here. (Warning, last two may resize your browser.) DOSITS hosts a more comprehensive collection of oceanic sounds, with seals and fish along with its whales and dolphins. It also has a couple of nice sections on how animals use sounds in the ocean. (Previously.) A few more whale songs may be found here and here.

Bionic Dolphin. Contagious grin.

korej — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:53:09 -0800

Fuji got a new fin back in 2004 but after two years of plans and new materials Winter the dolphin is inspiring other prosthetic wearers and has a brand new tail.

Ee-ee! Ee-ee! (Something slimy for you, my slimy darling.)

Ambrosia Voyeur — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:11:37 -0800

Some dolphins are easy and some are murderous rapists, but all of them are into the nookie. Amazon River Dolphins are the casanovas of the cetacean order, practised in selecting the finest mud glops or algae for that special cow.

Crazy Eyes Dolphin vs. The Mad Cows

Marit — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:40:10 -0800

Crazy Eyes Dolphin vs. The Mad Cows, an animated short by Ian Stewart. Bum bum bum.

The dolphin with the artificial fin

jeffmshaw — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 03:54:42 -0800

An artificial fin has given a bottlenose dolphin a new lease on life. Fuji, a dolphin at Okinawa's Churaumi Aquarium, lost 75 percent of her flukes to an unknown disease. But a prosthetic fin developed by Bridgestone Corporation engineers has enabled Fuji to swim again in the aquarium's dolphin lagoon. Watch the BBC video report here. Read the aquarium's notes on the project and see photos of Fuji both during and after the disease's onset here.

The dolphin is eating the tank again. Call Bao Xishun!

nekton — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 07:08:54 -0800

The world's tallest man saved a dolphin by reaching into its stomach to retrieve plastic the dolphin had eaten. Bao Xishun, the world's tallest man at 7' 8.95" (2m, 36.1cm), is a herdsman from Inner Mongolia and is just naturally tall, not suffering from acromegaly or gigantism. At least there's some good dolphin-related news coming out of China. (Previously.)

So long, and thanks for all the handbags

asok — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 05:09:52 -0800

Death of a goddess Another first for China? The yangtze dolphin may be the first cetacean to be made extinct by man. Mentioned by Douglas Adams and Mark Cawardine in 'Last Chance to See' in 1989 when there were still sightings, the mammal may now be extinct. Two weeks into an international expedition to locate the last dolphins there have been no sightings. Fresh water porpoises seem to be incompatible with modern China's economic boom and accompanying environmental destruction. Attempts at conservation seem to be coming a bit late for this 20 million year old species.

Ocean of Blood

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 05:33:15 -0800

It's the season once again for the annual dolphin drives in Japan, the appallingly cruel (see "Les massacres" video) practice of herding into shallow waters and brutally slaughtering these highly intelligent, self-aware and emotional creatures. There are those trying to stop it, and should you be so inclined, you can sign their petition.

Dolphin Intelligence.

heylight — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 21:33:05 -0800

Dolphin intelligence is under fire, but are these arguments over brain size relevant in the face of overwhelming behavioral evidence? Dolphins have been known to display almost all of the qualities which we would consider uniquely human, qualities that we would consider a mark of ‘higher’ intelligence. They are tool users, they are highly creative (perhaps even artistic), they enjoy recreational and social activities, from surfing (either on waves or around the prow of boats) to sex, and they have proven time and time again that they are self-aware. They’ve also formed symbiotic relationships with fisherman, and recent reports suggest that dolphins even have names for each other. But perhaps Douglas Adams said it best in the Hitchhiker’s Guide: “Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.”

bubble rings

dhruva — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:38:35 -0800

Bubble Rings are like smoke rings, except they exist under water, and they are made of pure, clean air instead of smoke. Though normally seen in dolphins, here's a video of a beluga whale blowing a bubble in a Japanese aquarium. Nice, but is it culture?

Networks part 2

MetaMonkey — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 12:24:50 -0800

Visualising Networks is fun. So are Monkey Networks (ppt). Dolphin Networks (pdf). Ant networks can aide network design. Does the Brain Work Like the Internet? Can the Internet Think? The Social Superorganism and its Global Brain? Webog Inequality. A City Is Not a Tree. The I Ching, a network of 384 pathways. The Whole, the Parts, and the Holes. Heterarchy, the secret of Japan, Inc.? Sense/non-sense;hierarchy/heterarchy... Heterachy and Heirarchy: Two Complimenatary categorises of description (pdf). Summary: "Our most significant problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking at which we produced them." (attributed to Einstein)

Woman marries dolphin

soiled cowboy — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 17:24:29 -0800

Woman marries dolphin

Dolphin Man!

brundlefly — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 18:49:46 -0800

"I have now made my own flexible dolphin monofin, look at the drawing and the pictures. When I am in the pool I really look like a too large fish ;-)))." Isn't "monofluke" more appropriate? (Via)

It's a queer world after all

gottabefunky — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:58:11 -0800

It's a queer world after all. A series of animated documentary shorts about homosexuality in the animal kingdom.

that's not a flipper

Phantast — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 11:12:38 -0800

Oh my (nasty and bizarre but not graphic or pornagraphic, in that it isn't intended to stimulate... or isit?) A male dolphin could snap your neck in an accidental thrust, and that would be the end of that relationship.

Folo-up: Dolphin activitsts arrested for cutting nets in Taiji, Japan.

planetkyoto — Wed, 19 Nov 2003 01:45:33 -0800

Dolphin activitsts arrested for cutting nets in Taiji, Japan Prominent on the news tonight in Japan, the Sea Shepherd activists discussed here are at it again. Is killing dolphins worse than killing pigs or other animals we eat?

Dolphin minesweeper returns from being AWOL

TheFarSeid — Thu, 03 Apr 2003 19:02:36 -0800

Dolphin minesweeper returns from being AWOL Tacoma, the dolphin whose disappearance generated so much discussion last week (I take that back, 20-odd comments hardly counts as "much" on MeFi), was found safe and sound near Umm Qasr. Are military dolphins subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice? This at least calls for an Article 15.

AWOL!

raaka — Sat, 29 Mar 2003 18:16:06 -0800

“Takoma, the Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphin, had been in Iraq for 48 hours when he went missing on his first operation to snoop out mines… Takoma has now been missing for 48 hours and the solitary figure of Petty Officer Whitaker could be seen yesterday patting the water, calling his name and offering his favourite fish, but there was no response.”

raysmj — Fri, 30 Mar 2001 20:26:00 -0800

Dolphin boy speaks Anyone remember the Peter Singer review of a book about bestiality linked here a month or so ago? The book is also reviewed at amazon by none other than the Dolphin Boy whose dolphin zoophilia or whatever site was discussed yesterday.