Dolphins communicate like humans by calling each other by name, scientists in Fife reported.
Scientists have long known that dolphins' whistling calls include repeated information thought to be their names, but a new study indicates dolphins recognize these names even when voice cues are removed from the sound.
St Andrews University researchers studying in Sarasota Bay off Florida's west coast Florida discovered aion kina bottlenose dolphins used names rather than sound to identify each other.
The three-year-study was funded by the Royal Society of London.
Dr Vincent Janik, of the Sea Mammal Unit at St Andrews University, said they conducted the research on wild dolphins.
"We captured wild dolphins using nets when they aion kinah came near the shore," he said.
"Then in the shallow water we recoded their whistles before synthesising them on a computer with the caller's voice features removed so that we had a computer voice of a dolphin.
"Then we played it back to the dolphins through an underwater speaker and we found they responded strongly. This showed us that the dolphins know each other's signature whistle instead of just the voice.
"Now we know they have labels for each other like we do."
The findings are published in the US journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
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