Dr. Laela Sayigh

You're welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, well, signature whistles are the closest thing to human names that we know of in the animal world.

They really are a lot like our own names.

So each dolphin has their own.

They do make their own signature whistles a fair bit, which is sort of different than how we use our own names because we can usually see each other.

But they use them maybe when they're out, you know, sort of in places where they can't see each other and use them to keep in touch.

Yes, yes, that's right.

That's right.

Well, they'll kind of call out, I'm here, I'm here.

But they do also copy each other and they will copy another dolphin's signature whistle as a way of calling out to them, which is more in line with how we use our names.

Oh, that's kind of the $60 million question or whatever.

It was actually the focus of my PhD dissertation a long time ago.

And I still cannot give you an answer.

I wish I could.

It's something I would love to know the answer to.

We know they do learn their sounds.

So they learn to produce their whistles.

And that's a really cool thing in and of itself because a lot of animals don't learn, but obviously we do.

And so that's something that's really important to us.