General Behaviour of Dolphins: Social Groupings: Dolphins are highly social animals and live in family groups called pods, the social organisations of pods can be very complex, it varies between species and even within species living in different parts of the world, however for a very general overview all species are two types of pod. The first is a ‘natal’ pod, this consists almost entirely of females and their young (calves) and can be either matriarchal (highest ranking dolphin is female) or patriarchal (highest ranking dolphin is male). In a patriarchal pod there is a principle male who controls the primary mating rights to the females of the pod, when a female is approaching season the principal male will become more territorial and chase away other males. In some cases there can be a pseudo-alliance between males in a patriarchal pod, 2-3 males might be responsible for primary mating in a pod, effectively sharing the top rank. A matriarchal pod is one in which the females choose which males mate with them, conflicts over mating rights are common in both matriarchal and patriarchal systems. The second type of pod is an ‘adolescent’ pod. This is made up of young males who have left or been forced from their natal pods after reaching a certain age, these young males join together and form their own pod while they look for a new natal pod. Individuals in adolescent pods live in the same way as they do in natal pods, there is a hierarchy and the dolphins often hunt together, an adolescent pod will consist of dolphins from one particular natal pod, this is not surprising as most dolphins breed seasonally (or at the least breed all year round but with peaks at certain times of year) because of this a number of dolphins may reach sexual maturity at the same time. This said it is not unheard for adolescent pods to have member from one than one natal pod. Pod sizes can vary from at few as 2 to as many as 200, although very large pods are subdivided into smaller sub-pods. Anger and Fighting: Dolphins can get angry, normally this happens as males compete for mating rights, however they rarely show prolonged aggression towards each other, normally the dispute is settled with a few rostrum bumps a couple of nips. Dolphins can show anger and aggression in several ways; pointing an open mouth at another dolphin is seen as a threat, as is nodding and thrashing or churning of the tail (flipper) is a sign of irritation. Dolphins normally have 'sonic manners' and avoid firing strong bursts of sonar at each other, however some researches believe these manners are ignored during and fighting, with the dolphins actively sweeping each other with powerful beams of sonar. Happiness and Playing: Play takes up a large amount of any dolphins time, it is an important part of forming and reinforcing the social bonds within a pod, although young dolphins play more than the rest of the pod, when their mothers allow them that it is. Young dolphins sometimes break the ‘rules’ laid down by their mothers, seemingly for the fun of it. Playing dolphins play all sorts of games, for instance: racing or chasing each other, jumping over one another or mating games. Dolphins in the wild are often seen riding ocean swells and they seem to love being pulled along by these powerful surges, this behaviour is effectively the same as when dolphins bow-ride at the front of moving ships. Curiosity and Intelligence: Dolphins are very intelligent animals, officially the Bottlenose dolphin is the next most intelligent animal after man. As a result of this intelligence dolphins are naturally curious animals and will instinctively investigate anything that is unusual to them, including us. Their intelligence has also allowed them to develop language to an extent, so far scientists have had little success in deciphering delphinic language and there is sum debate as to whether it could be defined as a real language. However the research in delphinic communication has revealed one important thing, dolphins have names; every dolphin studied was found to a special sound that represented it's name, called a callsig. Other members of the pod would use this sound to attract the dolphin or simply call it out just to see where it was. This may not sound like much but it proved one important thing, dolphins have a concept of self, to understand the concept of individual names they must first understand (or as the very least be aware of) individuality and all of the things which go with it. Some good articles on dolphin intelligence can be found here: Dolphina: Dolphin's intelligence Dolphins and Man.....Equals? Dolphins Oracles of the sea: Intelligence and Language