Eli5: Why are Dolphins specifically friendly towards humans only and not towards other animals/fish like sharks?
In: Biology
Dolphins – like humans – are highly social and communicative animals. Communication and social activity comes naturally to both of us.
This isn’t true of most animals a dolphin is likely to encounter. Most sea animals – fish, cephalopods (like octopus and squid) and sharks aren’t social at all, and most aren’t intelligent. They have either no interest or no capacity to interact with anyone – in the case of fish, dolphins likely just see them as food, in the same way most of us view a chicken.
The only other intelligent, social animals a dolphin is likely to ever meet is other ceteceans (whales and dolphins) and humans.
Whales are social, intelligent animals, but aren’t quite as smart as humans or dolphins. I wouldn’t be surprised if dolphins had tried to communicate with whales and sort-of succeeded – there are a handful of accounts of dolphins helping beached whales, or dolphins and whales forming mixed social groups and co-operative hunting pods.
There’s another factor too – humans are weird. When we encounter dolphins in the wild, we are essentially like aliens to them. We aren’t aquatic, we can’t swim very well, and we don’t look like anything else in the sea. Dolphins are naturally curious, and often inspect us in their desire to learn.
Basically I imagine it is because dolphins do not perceive us as a threat, which does not mean that if they feel threatened they would not attack. It must also be because of their genetics or way of being. Just as there are animals that tend to be more social, others do not. Dolphins are intelligent animals that well educated and taught can do many things.
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