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Public Announcement. I am interrupting my Michelle’s-mini-disasters-and-Red-Tape blog to bring you some fun Dancing Dolphins. Well, they’re not actually dancing, but I like to think of this as their equivalent of dancing in a culturally-enjoying-themselves kind of way.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7570097.stm

A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity.

The tail-walking group lives along the south Australian coast near Adelaide.

And

“We can’t for the life of us work out why they do it,” said Mike Bossley from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), one of the scientists who have been monitoring the group on the Port River estuary.

I think they are doing it for fun.

“This indicates that they do learn from each other, which is not a surprise really, but it does also seem that they exhibit elements of what in humans we would call ‘cultural’ behaviour,” said Dr Bossley.

Cultural behavior and having fun! I’m with Douglas Adams on the dolphins. They are really smart. That’s what I think and I’m sticking to it.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!