Season 5: Episode 7

I’ve Got A Name

A name is essential to your identity. It’s what people call you and what you respond to—it’s part of what you understand about yourself. But do other living things call each other by names? In this episode, we look at how names work in some non-human worlds.

Guests

Credits

Transcript

[00:00] INTRODUCTION

STEPHANIE: That's Huff.

LAURA: Huff again!

STEPHANIE: Hi Huff, how are you, hi! Is this little Puff?

AMY: I’m in Shark Bay, Western Australia, with a team of three scientists and one adorable dolphin calf. 

STEPHANIE: Hi Puff! What a cutie!

AMY: Oh...laughing

AMY: Puff is definitely the youngest and smallest dolphin I’ve ever seen. It’s tucked in next to its mom, moving in tandem with her through these pristine waters, doing all the regular dolphin stuff, but in miniature. 

STEPHANIE: We have Scruff, Tuff…

LAURA: Scruff…

STEPHANIE: …Zuff, Puff. I know, sorry Laura.

AMY: That’s Dr. Stephanie King, the leader of this team, explaining who’s who. As we watch, more dolphins arrive, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re delighting over the new baby, just like we are. This does seem to be some sort of family reunion—you can tell by their names. 

AMY: So I'm a little confused. The mom is which “uff” sound?

STEPHANIE: So, Scruff was the original female. And she's had two daughters. Huff and Tuff. And then Huff's now got a calf called Puff, and Scruff has a new calf called Zuff. (Amy laughs) So what we do is, like, to make it easier in tracking matrilines, it's either... there's some similarity right. Obviously, that one's obvious, Scruff, Huff, Tuff. But it could be something like we have the female Olive, and she's had Pimento, and Caper, and Martini. And so it becomes really easy to keep track of the family line.

AMY: Those names are then shortened to a three-letter code, which is how the dolphins are identified in scientific publications. But out here in the field, it's a lot easier to use an actual name, like Zeppelin, versus saying Z-E-P all the time, let alone using some sort of number. Names are just really helpful. And not only for humans—but for the dolphins, too.

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

AMY: This is what’s known as a signature whistle. It’s an individual identifier—the dolphin equivalent of a name.

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

AMY: These whistles are high and fast. So here’s an example with the pitch lowered so it’s easier to hear:

LOWER-PITCHED DOLPHIN WHISTLES

AMY: In our last visit with these dolphins, we heard about how they use echolocation to navigate and find food. This time, we’re going to focus on these signature whistles—one of the sounds that seems to be most important to the dolphins and the most intriguing to us.

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

AMY: Welcome to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and if we'd released this episode just one year earlier than we did, I would have told you that only three groups of animals were known to use name-like calls: humans, parrots, and dolphins. But in June of 2024, elephants were added to that list. More on that in a future episode. Then a few months later, marmosets—small Brazilian monkeys. And as our ability to listen to other species continues to rapidly improve, we'll probably discover many more examples.

AMY: Can we say that dolphins have language?

STEPHANIE: I tend to avoid or shy away from using the word language because it's very anthropomorphic. But yes, they have a repertoire of sounds that they may even combine—that's something we're still looking into—to negotiate these complex social relationships, to work together, to look after offspring, to find food. It's complex, right, the communication system. And so you see that there are similarities with the way that we use words that have probably evolved under similar social pressures.

AMY: So although it’s really fun when we find other creatures using names, the art of true understanding is grounding that sense of connection in a radical humility. Humans and dolphins are both big-brained mammals with rich, complex social lives, but we live in different mediums, we have different needs, different sensory systems. We can't assume that they have a word for fin like we have a word for foot, and that we just need to learn that word, or teach them ours. We have to be way more creative and open-minded about it.

STEPHANIE: I think we're doing them a disservice when we try and compare everything to human language. I like to try and appreciate the complexity of their communication system, and understand how and why it's evolved, and how they use it to share information with each other.

AMY: Like with these signature whistles. Stephanie doesn’t take it for granted that a dolphin name is just like a human name; she’s trying to understand what having a name even means to them. Rather than starting with ourselves and imposing our human expectations onto the animals, she’s trying to drop all preconceptions and let the dolphins lead their own story. Let them tell us who they are. In other words, she prioritizes listening over everything else.

INTRO MUSIC

[05:58] SEGMENT A

STEPHANIE: Did you hear that, or did I imagine it?

MILLIE: I heard that as well.

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

STEPHANIE: Ohhh!

LAURA: Those were definitely whistles!

AMY: It’s my second day in the boat with Dr. Stephanie King, PhD researcher Laura Palmer, and research assistant Millie Clark. The hydrophones are in the water, and the voices of a few of Shark Bay’s many resident dolphins are coming through the speaker. Stephanie says when dolphins make these signature whistles, they’re calling out their own names. Letting other dolphins know who they are.

STEPHANIE: It's almost like a greeting right. It's exchanging who's there, who's in the group that I'm joining.

AMY: So it's less like, “hi, Stephanie,” and more like, if it's me to you, going like, “Amy, Amy!”

STEPHANIE: Exactly, and that's because, like, if you think about all the animals that are in the bay, all the dolphins, vision is quite restricted underwater, so I can't really see very far. Instead of calling out for who you're looking for, you just broadcast your own identity, and that way you all know who's present, and it's easy to find each other. They sometimes do copy each other's signature whistles, as if addressing, like me saying, Amy! And when they are copied, they call back. They reply as if they've been addressed. That seems to occur, though, when there's a really strong motivation to reunite. So if animals have been separated for a while and they really want to reunite with a particular individual.

LAURA: Oh, behind us, 180.

STEPHANIE: Coming this way. ….that's good.

AMY: More dolphins are appearing, and the excitement in the boat is rising.

STEPHANIE: We're more likely to get whistles when animals join. So lots of studies have looked at when whistle rates increase and it's typically when you get changes in group composition.

LAURA: Okay. I'm going to take port.

MILLIE: I'll take starboard.

STEPHANIE: And just keep an eye behind as well.

AMY: Laura, Millie, Stephanie and I are standing with our backs to each other in the boat, peering off in different directions, looking for the quick glint of a shiny dolphin fin.

STEPHANIE: Oh, and there's another one ahead of us. Is it coming in? Is it going away?

AMY: It's still hard to tell exactly how many dolphins are joining up—or even if they are definitively joining. All we know for sure is that there seem to be a lot of them around.

STEPHANIE: So we have Moggy and then somebody else with a similar fin...Oh, ahm, it might be Supafly.

LAURA: Oooo!

AMY: Stephanie consults a dolphin look book they have with them—photos and descriptions of some of the thousands of Shark Bay dolphins—and quickly confirms her guess: this is Supafly. And she has a new calf, which is really exciting, because the heart of this year’s research project is something called “vocal ontogeny.”

STEPHANIE: By that I mean how calves develop their whistles over time. Do they start quiet? Do they get louder? At what age do they increase the number of whistles they produce? These are the questions that still need to be answered.

AMY: Along with many, many more. And that process starts here, in the field—or in this case in a big, sparkling, turquoise-blue bay—with microphones on, and scientists carefully observing everything they see and hear.

STEPHANIE: We really want to collect as many whistles as we can from different individuals in the population. So we can look at things like how environment influences whistle structure, how social relationships or social complexity influences whistle structure and repertoire size, so how many whistles individuals produce. And so it's important for us to collect this baseline information.

AMY: Important, and extremely rare. There's only one other population of wild dolphins on the planet, in Florida, that has been studied as long as the ones in Shark Bay.

STEPHANIE: We have information, you know, from birth, for many of the animals of who they spend time with, who they associate with, who their friends with, who they avoid, who they compete with, who they're related to. So we're at the stage now where we are tracking individuals across their entire lives and moving through the next few generations.

AMY: All of this information is crucial, because even though sound is primary for these animals, every whistle and buzz is produced in a context of relationships and action, not to mention weather and time of day. A whole host of circumstances that almost certainly affect what the sounds actually mean to them. Understanding dolphin communication—or any communication—isn’t as simple as just extracting out some sounds and plugging them into an algorithm. It requires understanding the whole animal, in a habitat, over time. That’s what makes this long-term, comprehensive project in Shark Bay so special.

STEPHANIE: It really is, I think, the Rosetta Stone of dolphin behavioral ecology, dolphin communication. We've produced so much from this one population, and really furthered our knowledge of dolphin behavior because of this long-term study.

STEPHANIE: You know, you work with them long enough, you recognize them by ear as well.

AMY: Oh, really?

STEPHANIE: And so I can hear a signature whistle and be like, oh, that's Seebee, or that's Pasta, and even before I see them, or if they're underwater, I know who's around.

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

LAURA: Whistle!

AMY: That was a whistle.

AMY: While we've been talking, Laura and Millie have been watching and listening to Supafly and her calf, who are still swimming nearby.

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

LAURA: Whistle!

STEPHANIE: Did you hear one?

LAURA: Yeah! Love Supafly and calf!

STEPHANIE: Up there, up there Laura!

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

LAURA: OK, they're at 340 degrees.

AMY: Stephanie eases the boat forward, and I check in with Laura.

BOAT ENGINE STARTING

AMY: How are you feeling?

LAURA: I feel excited. Hopefully couple more.

AMY: She’s holding her binoculars in one hand and a microphone in the other, which she’s using to record voice notes about what we can see from the boat. Later she'll listen through her hours and hours of recordings and try to match the behaviors she’s observed visually with the sounds the dolphins are making. So getting these recordings of whistles is a little bit like collecting bits of treasure, which she’ll take out later to examine and marvel over and learn from.

AMY: Oh, straight ahead!

LAURA: OK here they are. Cool. They're about 220 degrees.

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

LAURA: YES!

STEPHANIE: That's louder as well!!

LAURA: So good. Love these guys. Supafly and calf are my favorite! I've said that about every dolphin so far (laughter).

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

STEPHANIE: Up and then down whistle.

LAURA: Still going…

AMY: I know it’s hard to hear, but the dolphins are whistling. A lot.

LAURA: Still going…

AMY: We know dolphins use signature whistles to identify each other, but there could be all sorts of other information encoded in each sound as well.

STEPHANIE: It's not just about learning the sounds that other animals produce, but using the sounds that are best suited to the environment that you are in. So for example, in the southern part of the habitat, it's a bit louder and whistles don't travel as far.

AMY: It’s louder, not because of human-made noise, but because of differences in the shape of the underwater terrain, and because there are more snapping shrimp in the south part of the bay. Stephanie says the dolphins there tend to use shorter, lower whistles, because those kinds of sounds are easier to hear in that habitat.

STEPHANIE: And so in the northern part of the habitat, we predicted animals would use much higher frequencies, longer whistles, more modulated whistles. And we found that that's the case.

AMY: By more modulated, Stephanie means that the whistle has more changes of pitch. It might go up and down a few times, like this…

COMPLEX DOLPHIN WHISTLE

…versus a simpler structure, like this…

SIMPLER DOLPHIN WHISTLE

AMY: And because these differences between whistles are connected to the geography of the Bay, it could be that when two dolphins meet, they can both get a sense of where the other is from, the way I can hear immediately that Stephanie is from the UK, and she can hear that I’m from the U.S.

STEPHANIE: You know I think dialects is a good way of looking at it. You can travel to a different city in, or a different state, and people can sound a little bit different, but. But we communicate fine. We don't even think about it. We're using the same words, right? We understand each other.

AMY: But if a non-English speaker were listening in to us, some of the differences in how we talk could be very confusing. In some cases, it might be hard to sort out what is a difference in dialect or accent, and what is an entirely different word. And this is just one example of the huge variety of factors—known and unknown—that these scientists are dealing with as they try to understand dolphin communication. Each signature whistle contains a world of fascinating questions. And so does each dolphin.

LAURA: They're incredibly smart, it's incredibly important to conserve them.

AMY: I’m talking with Laura in the Shark Bay research station, at the end of a long day out in the boat, collecting sounds.

LAURA: The more that we can show, the more that people can relate to these animals in some way and the more that we can inspire people to care about them and the marine environment in general, the better for the world—fighting the climate crisis, everything.

DOLPHIN WHISTLES

AMY: Yeah, I was thinking today, you know, we have this whole life out here in the air, on the surface, and then they have this whole life under the water. And then there's this thin, thin layer where we meet, where they come up to get the air, and we ride on the water, and just in that little tiny space of interaction, there's so much that can happen in terms of observation and connection. And yet it's also so mysterious because then they disappear again into their world.

LAURA: Exactly. It is unknown to us. But sound allows us to tap into that a little bit. You suddenly start hearing loads of whistles, and you look around and you might see that there's another group on the periphery, or coming in, or something like that. So I think, acoustics is amazing in that way as well. You've dropped into their world a little bit more.

LAURA: When you're with them and you observe how complex their behaviors can be and how much is probably going on beneath the surface, you know. I think it’s amazing. I'm often in awe.

AMY: We’ll have more after this short break.

Break

[16:42] SEGMENT B

STEPHANIE: What's so fascinating about dolphins is they're vocal production learners, which means they're not born with a set repertoire of sounds, they learn everything. Like we do, right? We're not born with a language. We learn it. We can learn new languages.

AMY: Welcome back to Threshold, I’m Amy Martin, and I’m on land now, talking with Dr. Stephanie King about how dolphins get their names.

STEPHANIE: Anecdotally, from what I've seen of young animals, particularly in the first couple of months, they're starting to learn to produce whistles. It will be very much influenced by the whistles they hear in their environment. They'll copy. So they're copying sounds that they hear and learning to produce these whistles.

AMY: Which also speaks to how crucial the acoustics are for them.

STEPHANIE: Exactly. It's far more important than anything else. So that's something that they need to learn and develop fairly quickly.

AMY: Little Puff is probably already trying to make a signature whistle. But it’ll take some practice. Stephanie says that just like human babies have to babble before they can talk, young dolphins have to experiment with whistling before they can really do it.

STEPHANIE: They certainly don't sound like full adult whistles, there's a bit more vibration.

DOLPHIN CALF WHISTLE

STEPHANIE: They're learning how to produce these. But it's just a few months and then they're producing these nice regular whistles.

MATURE DOLPHIN WHISTLE

AMY: I wondered if the calves end up creating whistles that are variants of their mom’s names. Like, if she’s Mary, is the calf more likely to be named Kerry or Larry? But Stephanie said it’s more like the opposite of that.

STEPHANIE: What we find typically is that calves tend to produce something that's different to the sounds they hear. Like it's modeled on the population but something that's different to the animals interacts with regularly. And that makes sense because you want to stand out, because these signature whistles are all about individual identity, right?

AMY: And while baby is learning, mom is talking.

STEPHANIE: I have done some studies earlier in my career where I looked at the vocal behavior of the mother just before she gave birth, then after giving birth. And that's interesting because we have a species that when the young's born, the calf has to be very mobile, right, to stay with the mum, and there's a risk of separation. And so what the mother does is she increases her signature whistle production nearly tenfold after the birth of the calf for the first 2 to 3 weeks. So she's whistling all the time. And that way the calf recognizes its mum. And it knows when it hears that whistle it approaches because that's it's mum. And that makes sure that if there is a separation, the calf can find the mum again.

BOAT NOISE

AMY: We’re back in the boat, hours after Huff and Puff and all the other Uffs have dispersed, and Stephanie’s looking intently through her binoculars.

STEPHANIE: Got something. It's quite far.

LAURA: I saw splashing. See it, see it? Someone coming in! Yes! Yes!

MUSIC

AMY: Laura had explained to me earlier that as a scientist—and as a Brit—she is contractually obligated to contain her emotions. But sometimes—thankfully—she can't help herself.

LAURA: Oooo this is exciting!

AMY: Okay. What's happening?

LAURA: Okay, so in the very distance, several hundred meters away, we've seen dolphins coming in. So this is a potential join between different groups. We need to confirm who's involved still. But this is exciting. It normally initiates vocalizations like whistles and things.

MUSIC

AMY: This is like being with the best dolphin hunters in the world. But doing the coolest kind of hunting. And when we're on the on the scent, so to speak, they're like leaning forward, looking through their binoculars. It's this exciting feeling of pursuit. But then when we get there, it's just be calm. Be quiet. Hold back. Watch. Observe. Photograph. Take notes.

BOAT NOISE

AMY: Oooo! Ha ha! Some jumping happening.

STEPHANIE: Is it Juicy?

LAURA: We still have a distant animal at about ten degrees.

STEPHANIE: Zeppelin

LAURA: Zeppelin.

STEPHANIE: And Juicy, so she has joined.

LAURA: Zeppelin and Juicy so there was as join.

STEPHANIE: Can we get a quick picture.

LAURA: Loads of splashing there. Oh yeah. So there's a full on leap.

STEPHANIE: Great!

LAURA: Ahhhh! (laughing)

AMY: This is so cool! (laughing)

AMY: Suddenly there are dolphins everywhere.

STEPHANIE: There's three there now!

LAURA: There's more further out. The splashing was further out.

AMY: Oh my gosh, five!

STEPHANIE: Jungle, Zeppelin just here.

STEPHANIE: I’m going to switch off. Do you want to turn up?

AMY: Stephanie turns the boat engine off, and Laura switches the speaker on.

LAURA: It's going to happen. Something's going to happen. Ten degrees…

LOUD DOLPHIN WHISTLE

LAURA: WOOOO! (laughter, Laura trying narrate through her laughter)

STEPHANIE: That's the best whistle you've heard!

LAURA: Composure! That was an amazing whistle, that's going in the analysis. (laughter)

MUSIC

AMY: After a while, some of the dolphins who’ve joined up swim off, and those that stay go into relaxation mode—that “snagging” that Stephanie told us about last time, where they just bob quietly at the surface together.

STEPHANIE: Right now, they're quite tight, they're relaxed, they're resting. They know who's there. But all it takes is for them to change behavior and spread out and start foraging, and then they'll whistle to maintain contact, to come upon another individual or group of animals and to start whistling to exchange information. So we're just waiting for the right context. And you really have to be patient. You know, it is a privilege to observe the animals and their behavior. You know, we're spending time in their world. And so we just have to take a step back and watch and carefully observe and be patient. And, you know, it can pay dividends when you get a good context and they start vocalizing like crazy. And then you can get a great sample size.

AMY: And there are worse places to be.

STEPHANIE: Absolutely. I mean, look at the view.

AMY: It’s just clear blue water, smooth as glass, as far as the eye can see.

MUSIC

AMY: As we’ve heard about in previous episodes this season, new technologies are transforming the way we can listen to the natural world. Stephanie embraces these tools, but she also says there is nothing that can replace old-school, in-person field work. Just being physically present with the animals, in their habitat, watching and listening.

STEPHANIE: When you spend so much time with the animals, you really see there's such clear differences in behavior between individuals, you know, and you do get to know them as individuals.

AMY: And you also get to know things about yourself—to feel the dolphins working back on you, as the observer. Even in my short time in Shark Bay, I felt the experience of spending long days focusing all my energy on another species changing me a little bit. It was all about surrendering my own agenda, and adapting to their pace, their rhythm. Challenging myself to drop into a deeper and deeper level of attunement.

STEPHANIE: A mentor of mine once said that to be a good animal behaviorist, you have to have patience and an eye for detail. And also empathy. And I think that's absolutely true. And I think I care about studying these animals because I also have empathy for them, and I want to understand the intricacies of their lives and how they negotiate them. What does it mean to be a dolphin, you know?

AMY: Answering that question isn't something that happens through one study, or one field season, or even one human lifetime. This is a long term bridge-building process that requires the effort of many minds, over generations. It’s exciting to dream about what it would be like if we’re ever able to cross that bridge, and truly comprehend what dolphins are saying to each other. But maybe the important point of all this work isn’t waiting for us in some distant future when we can sit around chatting with animals. Maybe it’s about what happens to us along the way—how we’re changed by the process of learning to listen to them.

DOLPHIN WHISTLE

LAURA: Woo-hoo!

STEPHANIE: Was that whistles?

LAURA: Whistles!

Credits

AMY: This episode of Threshold was written, reported, and produced by me, Amy Martin, with help from Erika Janik and Sam Moore. Music by Todd Sickafoose. Post-production by Alan Douches. Fact checking by Sam Moore. Special thanks to Stephanie King and Laura Palmer for many of the dolphin sounds you heard in this episode. This show is made by Auricle Productions, a non-profit organization powered by listener donations. Deneen Wiske is our executive director. You can find more about our show at thresholdpodcast.org.

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