A bottlenose dolphin was heard apparently talking to itself in the Baltic Sea. Photo: Unsplash
A team of researchers recently found a solitary dolphin in the Baltic Sea. It could very well be a bit of a sad story, since the dolphin appeared to be talking to itself in the absence of other dolphins.
Two things were strange about the find: first, bottlenose dolphins aren’t generally found in the Baltic Sea. Second, because dolphins are social animals that, for the most part, live in pods that can number in the hundreds.
Dolphin pods make up complex social groups and are useful in hunting, so a solitary dolphin is a bit weird. Add that to the fact that the lonely dolphin made its home in Denmark’s Svendborgsund channel, and you’ve got a strange story indeed.
About five years ago, the locals living along the Svendborgsund channel spotted the male bottlenose. Marine biologists, when they heard about the dolphin, were curious as to why it would be there, so they began studying it.
“They noted that it was not likely that the dolphin had befriended the local harbor porpoises,” wrote Phys.org. “Eventually, they lowered a microphone into the water to find out if the dolphin, which the locals had named Delle, was making any noises.”
Delle was later identified as “individual #1022,” a dolphin that already went by the nickname of Yoda. What the researchers found was a surprise. Delle wasn’t the least bit quiet, even though he had no one to talk to. They heard 10,833 sounds from the dolphin between December 2022 to February 2023, ranging from clicks and whistles to other noises that are thought to be linked to aggressive behavior. Fightin’ words, as it were.
They also found that Delle was making sounds that are thought to be solely used when dolphins are communicating with each other, which led the researchers to theorize that lonely Delle was talking to himself.
“The researchers noted that the dolphin continued talking when no humans were around, showing it was not trying to talk to them,” Phys.org continued. “They suggest it is possible some of the voicings are related to emotional outbursts, similar to a human being laughing at something despite being alone. They also suggest it is possible the creature is simply lonely and talking to itself is a means of distraction.”
Delle has moved on from the Svendborgsund channel these days. “Delle spent more than three years in Svendborgsund and left the area on April 8, 2023, when he was spotted in Nyborg, which is approximately 30 kilometers north from Svendborg,” the researchers wrote. “On the 23rd of April, Delle was seen in Trawemünde, Germany where he spent approximately three weeks. After that, he was occasionally seen in other locations on the German Baltic coast.”
