Dolphins Cooperate by Talking It Out

How do you know when animals are working together? Just because two animals got something done jointly doesn't mean they cooperated. They might have succeeded by dumb luck, or trial and error. Scientists who study animal minds, though, would really like to know when cooperation happens on purpose—and how animal partners manage to communicate with each other. Studies in capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees hinted that the primates coordinated their actions by glancing at each other. (But this video shows some chimps who were stumped by a cooperative task, unless their partner was a human.) Baboons smacked their lips while working together. Lionfish used certain fin displays before hunting together. Dolphins often cooperate to hunt. They may use regionally specific tricks to trap prey—dolphins in Florida, for example, slap their tails to scare fish out of the water and into their partners' mouths. Researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi and ...