Lone Dolphin In Baltic Sea Apparently Talking To Himself

Why might a wild dolphin talk to himself?

© by GrrlScientist for Forbes | LinkTr.ee

Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins, a mother and her offspring. (Credit: Brandon Trentler / CC BY 2.0)

When you are alone, especially for long periods of time, do you talk to yourself? If so, you’re in interesting company because a male Atlantic bottlenose dolphin who has been living alone in the Baltic Sea for more than three years, appears to be talking to himself.

Bottlenose dolphins are highly social oceanic mammals that live in large fisson-fusion groups known as pods. They are toothed whales that are common, cosmopolitan members of the family of oceanic dolphins, the Delphinidae.

Although gregarious by nature, some bottlenose dolphins are quite adventurous, and can set off on their own to live in foreign waters. This apparently is what happened five years ago. Local people living on the shores of Denmark’s Svendborgsund channel in the Baltic Sea, noticed a solitary male bottlenose dolphin had arrived and apparently was making the channel his home. Such a sighting is rare because a dolphin had never been spotted in the area before, and further, the area was heavily built up and was home to a busy shipping channel.

The locals named the lone dolphin Delle, but later, he was identified as individual #1022, named Yoda, from the photo identification catalogue of…