The Dolphin Alliance Project, Inc.

Katy Holmes did her PhD work with Stephanie King on our project in Shark Bay and now works on the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program. She is the lead author on this amazing brand new paper in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that links roles and bonds in social-s*xual play in juvenile male dolphins with reproductive success as adults!
This paper also demonstrates the importance of long-term research. I saw these juvenile play groups in October 1988, but my focus was on adult males. Amy Samuels joined our group to study the juveniles with Cindy Flaherty-Stamm, but Amy unfortunately passed away in 2008. Well, those Rascally juveniles that Amy and Cindy watched grew up and Katy was able to examine data over a 32 year period demonstrating the link between juvenile play behavior and adult reproductive success, a link that has been kind of a Holy Grail in animal play behavior research.

Thanks for such a nice article, Virginia!

More playful young male dolphins father more offspring Study is first to link juvenile play behavior in the wild to reproductive benefits

I am so sorry to say goodbye to this coffee mug! I had dropped it and thought it was OK until I put coffee in it this morning, which came leaking out of a lethal crack. 1987 was the first conference where I presented preliminary data on two levels of male alliance formation in Shark Bay, including aggressive herding of females by first order male alliances and thefts by second order alliances. I expected my poster to get a lot of attention, but mostly people just looked at it and moved on; I think it was just too weird. The other thing I remember from that conference was the infamous night at the bar where we drank and danced to an incredible Cuban rock band.

Emma Chereskin recently published her first paper from her PhD, showing that male dolphins with stronger bonds coordinate their “pops” more than less strongly bonded males. Pops are a very cool vocalization that males use to keep estrous females nearby.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2023.0194?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3ZK1a-JTubWn61U481pH7X37RZ6aaCOziZcqR0UCI1HHAndwAto4vOBsg_aem_ATK58SYXBcvrlRppy1t4vvYXOzArb4NS-YFX-dcpyMcUoMshLN8zHCurcagm2OVE8J0xlrhfeRfdWsJStTvbKhtC

About three weeks ago a major article appeared in Science describing cooperation between individual Bonobos who live in different groups. The authors suggested that they had the first evidence outside of humans of individuals cooperating with members of other groups where the cooperation is not based on an immediate benefit, and as such is 'prosocial'. They also suggested that the between-group alliances we described in The Proceedings of the National Academy last year were 'akin' to the simple coalitions between individuals belonging to different Bonobo groups. Their characterization was wrong on both counts, as we explain in an eLetter published today on the same link as the Bonobo artlcle (scroll to the end). In sum, cooperation between dolphins belonging to different groups is not based on immediate benefits and it remains the case that only dolphins and humans have intergroup alliances of non-relatives. Have a look!

Cooperation across social borders in bonobos Bonobo cooperation across groups offers a window into humanity’s evolutionary past.

We are thrilled to announce an important new paper on the dolphin alliances, appearing in Animal Cognition, and led by my former Ph.D. student Whitney Friedman. In 2011 we published, in Biology Letters, evidence for an astonishing third level of alliance among the male dolphins in Shark Bay. Last year we published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrating that third-order relationships are important for males. Whitney's paper completes the foundation trilogy of papers on third-level or 'inter-group' alliances, with her study on the dynamics and maintenance of third-order alliance relationships. Within non-human primate groups, coalitions between unrelated individuals may be very complex as individuals compete for favored allies. Such strategic relationships are maintained by friendly touching behavior, are highly 'differentiated' (e.g. A spends more time grooming with favored ally B than C) and may shift (if C is able to win B's favor over A). Using aerial and side video while following alliances, Whitney discovered that third-order dolphin relationships are also highly differentiated, maintained by touching and synchrony, and may shift--she documented the formation of a brand new third-order relationship! Thus we can now say that the complexities of alliance relationships found among individual primates, and that are thought to favor social intelligence, are found in all three levels of dolphin alliances! This figure, from Whitney's paper, shows individual connections within and between the PD, KS and RR second-order alliances. RR and KS formed a new third-order alliance during Whitney's study. Read the paper here https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-023-01804-y

Announcing The Dolphin Alliance Culture Project.

We are incredibly excited to announce our new website and fundraising effort: The Dolphin Alliance Culture Project. This project will marry the two most famous streams of research in Shark Bay, the complex male alliances and the remarkable foraging specializations, like sponge-carrying. The history our 40 years of research in Shark Bay is one of shifting gears to focus on exciting new research directions, dating from the switch from my original thesis idea of comparing male and female activity budgets (zzzzz) to focusing on male alliances. Three key developments have led us to this new phase in Shark Bay dolphin research; the realization that second-order alliances are long-term stable groups like primate groups, that the remarkable specializations in habitat use and feeding techniques (e.g. sponge-carrying) are important in the lives of males and the technical advances (e.g. drones and hydrophone arrays) that have moved us light-years forward in our ability to watch and listen to dolphins. Visit www.dolphinallianceproject.org to learn about The Dolphin Alliance Culture Project and how you can help!

Simon Allen is 50!!

Simon was doing research on dolphins in Port Stephens on the east coast when he first came to visit our Shark Bay team over 20 years ago. He fell in love with Shark Bay and Western Australia, became part of our team and is now growing OLD with us!  Take it from an even older fart, Simon is a great teammate, friend and someone you want on your research project!

Today for Simon‘s 50th in Shark Bay we had our last day working with the Canadian film crew. The wind was rocking but we found great dolphin social and fishing action in front of the park, then back to the research station for cake and to the Boughshed Resturant tonight. Happy birthday Simon!

Smokey gets grounded! A bunch of Dolphins were blasting around chasing fish in the shallows in front of Monkey Mia today, including the Shoreburds and Rascals, two alliances that specialize in shallow water fishing. Smokey was in hot pursuit of a tasty prize when he skidded to a halt on one of the sand bars that runs perpendicular to the shore.  He was not the picture of grace as he awkwardly flopped his way off the sandbar. Smokey was fine, the only injury was to his pride. 

Stephanie King and me on The Naked Scientists podcast talking about our recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/dolphins-form-largest-alliance-ever-found

Dolphins form largest alliance ever found Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia have formed the largest animal alliance outside of humans

Springtime is mating season in Shark Bay!  Early September has always been a transition into the Dolphin mating season. Consortships and conceptions can happen in any month, but there is a definite peak beginning in September and lasting a few months. Yesterday we documented six consortships; the kind of totals we sometimes get on Austral spring days. Here you see a few pictures of the classic “formation” with a trio of males behind a female they are consorting — she is out of sight in a few because she dove first. And spring mating is not only for dolphins of course! This morning we heard a terrible screeching and stepped outside to see an excited Galah with his mate whom he had probably just defended from another. They flew from the tree to the roof of our research station where he snuggled and groomed his mate.  The male, with the dark eyes, is on the left and the female, with the pink eyes, is on the right. Galahs are so beautiful! We are very excited that they may nest nearby!! 

An early morning walk back to Red Bluff to find my lost sunnies (success!) revealed this stunning bush in bloom that I had not photographed before. Upon my return the wind dropped and we got out for a fantastic, if cloudy, afternoon. Highlights included a group of five mums with their little yoys (Young of the year). The moms were resting but the yoys were decidedly not!  We enjoyed watching them romp around with each other (see video of one of the yoys excited around our bow in comments) before moving on to a consortship by three Kroker Spaniels that included Moggy, whom I had not seen this year! 
In the picture you can see Moggy and Pong with heads up doing synchronized chin slaps behind the female. The closest dolphin, Deet, was also doing a chin slap but he was a little out of tune with the others.  Those bothersome clouds made way for a beautiful sunset! 

There have been a lot of dugongs on and near the banks northeast of Monkey Mia recently and especially today! As we drove along looking for our favorite Alley Cats alliance, who live in that area, dugongs in the distance were distracting us, then suddenly there was a wave of dugongs near the boat. The safest thing to do if that happens is just go into neutral, turn off your motor and sit there, until the coast is clear. They swam past slowly and we were able to resume our dolphin search (but we didn’t find the Alley Cats 😢). My photographs stunk but Svenja got some great ones, including a mother and calf surfacing together.

 We took this group picture and said goodbye to Team West today as they headed back to Useless loop.

We love the Shoreburds!  20 years ago the Rascals formed an alliance of seven males deep in Red Cliff Bay. We were thrilled because that gave us an alliance nearby to observe when conditions further out were not the best. Only three Rascals remain, now in their early to mid 30s. Now we have the Shoreburds, a new young alliance of six who are mostly sons of Monkey Mia females, so they are often in front of the park or nearby along the shore! Chased in by the wind today, we found them just off the park with a female so we decided to stick around to see which two of the six had the consortship.  They were snoozing around close to shore when the young female Wirriya, who is turning 10 soon and could conceive this year or more likely in the next year or two, came in and stirred everybody up!  It was rock ‘n’ roll time all around the boat. Todd was able to film all sorts of amazing behavior, including social s*x, synchrony, bonding (see below) and all around general mayhem.  Their film is on friendship, so they were incredibly lucky to film bonding behavior which we don’t see very often. Bonding (see picture) is almost exclusively performed by females to each other and often occurs when females are being herded or harassed by males. And yes we got the separation and consortship, by Starlet and India, whose derring-do in the Hooligans fight had so impressed us last month.

Stephanie’s last day. Our fantastic team, Stephanie, Pernille, Simon and Richard, conducting “playback” experiments (Using a drone to record the immediate reaction of dolphins hearing the vocalizations of other dolphins played through an underwater speaker) was broken up today when Stephanie had to return home. Setting up each playback requires focus and coordination by all four of us and we work really well together! And how lucky, on Stephanie’s last day, to have the bay turn to glass, find her favorite “Alley Cats” consorting a female and get in a perfect playback before the rain and west wind sent us home! Check out the astonishing symmetrical formation of the six Alley Cats around the female seconds before the playback! And of course, no post would be complete without pics of stunning Shark Bay.

An unusual low formed near Shark Bay today and rained buckets on us. Team West is visiting us this week so we all gathered with a few of the rangers for a little celebration. The storm gave way to a beautiful sunset.

We went out in less than ideal conditions and with no expectations today, but found a couple dolphins and were in the middle of a survey when a guy approached us in a tinny reporting that a turtle had been wrapped up in one of his crab trap ropes.  He led us back to where,  indeed, a smallish female loggerhead was carrying around a bouy with the line wrapped around her flipper and neck.  We held the bouy and turtle near while experienced turtle catcher Simon was able to get the turtle and bring her to the back of the boat where she was hoisted up on the platform and cut free from the offending line. Multiple karma points thus secured, it was perhaps not surprising that we soon encountered Shoreburds India and Starlet for a successful pair of playbacks to Starlet!

You can see a link to our actual article here on The Dolphin Decade webpage as well as the three articles I posted earlier. You can also read about our incredible plans for the Dolphin Decade and join the team!

 https://www.thedolphindecade.org/news

News — The Dolphin Decade News

An article in Science about our new article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences!
https://www.science.org/content/article/rival-teams-male-dolphins-form-animal-world-s-biggest-social-networks-long-running

Rival teams of male dolphins form the animal world’s biggest social networks, long-running study finds Keeping track of male alliances may have driven the marine mammals to evolve bigger brains

An article in The Times about our new article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dealmaking-dolphins-see-greater-gains-with-mates-cl0dmvwrt

Dealmaking dolphins see greater gains with mates The ability for groups of humans to co-operate has been considered a hallmark that separates us from other animals. But a set of dolphins off the west coast of

Our new publication in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences featured in The Guardian!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/29/male-dolphins-form-lifelong-bonds-that-help-them-find-mates-research-finds

Male dolphins form lifelong bonds that help them find mates, research finds In behaviour only previously seen in humans, ‘social brain’ helps dolphins form complex alliances to see off their rivals for females

We are thrilled to announce a major publication by our team in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

We show that the male dolphins have the largest non-human alliance network known and that intergroup alliances, until now unknown outside of humans, are important for male dolphin success in Shark Bay! The paper is already receiving a lot of coverage in the press, which we will share.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2121723119

Strategic intergroup alliances increase access to a contested resource in male bottlenose dolphins | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Efforts to understand human social evolution rely largely on comparisons with nonhuman primates. However, a population of bottlenose dolphins in Sh...

We didn’t expect to get out on the water at all today, but the wind dropped and we had a wonderful observation of the Blues Brothers alliance before the wind and rain sent us back home. The Blues Brothers were important Dolphins for us in a major study from 2001 to 2006. Great to see some of them still doing well! Stay tuned for some big news about that study!!  Meanwhile, I hope you are like me and think rain clouds over the bay are beautiful! Enjoy!

A great day for Shark Bay Dolphin Research. Both boats from team East, based out of Monkey Mia, were on the water for 11 hours and got great data. We had hours of glassy calm like the boat on team West, who are working out of Useless Loop. We heard they also had a great day! 

A Star(let) is Born? Today was an amazing microcosm of Shark Bay male dolphin politics. We were watching two pairs of Shorebirds, each with a female consort, when three Rascals, who also had a female, came charging in. The ensuing aggression may have been more about male-male relationships than the females; but they were on the same side when three Hooligans came down from the north to try to take one of the females from the Shorebirds. We were impressed that the Hooligans would try that without backup from the other five members of their alliance, but we were even more impressed by how tough the Shorebirds India and especially Starlet behaved.  After they had won the battle, Starlet, now 19, left the group to reapproach the Hooligans by himself. Wow, I thought, that sort of behavior reminds me so much of the legendary Real Notch, who was, not to mince words, a total badass for 30 years. We wondered out loud who Starlet’s father was, and when we got back to the research station we checked.. it was indeed Real Notch! Maybe a new legend began today! 

After they had vanquished their rivals, Starlet, likely beside himself with excitement, tossed this little puffer fish repeatedly. Julia Weidmann captured this great shot of Starlet in his glorious moment of celebration!

Special dinner tonight celebrating 40 years of dolphin research in Shark Bay! 

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of dolphin research in Shark Bay! Here are some pictures of our amazing team, now working in both gulfs and our amazing new research station at Monkey Mia! Thank you Michael Kruetzen, the University of Zürich and the RAC!