Video of sperm whale checking out an oil rig at 1000 ft

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idxniMZSFKI

edit: this was captured by a robot controlled camera at an oil rig in LA. It is not the oil rig that is currently destroying the Gulf of Mexico.


These whales can dive to 8,000 feet and possibly deeper, far past the point in which submarines are crushed. Perhaps some money should go to a floating research/interaction station so that we can study and interact with them. They are certainly smarter than dolphins and would have no problem aiding us with disasters such as the current "spill" in the Gulf of Mexico.

I wonder what we will do to Mars and other planets once we arrive?

I am sure they are very smart. Just curious about your characterization.

(All things being equal I would expect the more social animal to be a tad smarter.)

"Certainly" is premature on my part. We are fairly certain that Orcas are, with their cerbral cortex 3x's larger than those of bottle-nose dolphins. The sperm whale cortex is three times that of the Orcas (6x's that of humans).

As the increased areas are in the areas we believe to be for critical thought processes, it should follow that the sperm whales are at the top. Interesting that they can dive so deep, too, considering that adaptability is one of the criteria for intelligence.

Sperm whales may have massive brains, but their bodies are massive too. Many animals have larger brains than humans, yet we're still the most intelligent creatures on the planet.

Elephants have larger brains than humans. But they have to deal with gravity and more of the brain is dedicated to motor functions.

After the elephants it is some of the dolphins and whales, who essentially live in a weightless environment, who have larger brains than humans. The additional brain mass is in the same areas that separate us from the apes. Not only are these areas larger, but there are more folds, or convolutions, in the cortical mass. If you look at brain comparison images of different species you'll see the convolutions increase relative to their intelligence.

I assume that birds and bats are smarter than we would assume from anatomy and that whales are a little less smart.

Reason? Because a flying creature faces intense evolutionary pressure to make the brain efficient. (Weight.)

A land animal doesn't have the same pressure. A sea animal even less.

This is not a slur on sea mammals. They are quite smart.

But I doubt their neural mass is as efficient as a bat's. Or a human's, though our brain efficiency is driven from a different direction; the morphological dead-end we got into by having the birth canal go through the pelvis. It is very difficult to change the basic relationships tubing in evolution. (The tubes from human testicles to penis are tied in knots as a result of a series of evolutionary shifts.) When our pelvises encountered the opposing mandates of being good for walking while being big enough to pass a human head I am sure compact efficiency was selected for. And, of course, immaturity. We are born almost as helpless as opossums and with a soft segmented skull, all to try to maximize brain in the brain/pelvis equation.

This one tries to integrate Manger's theory:

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050139

And another on the 2006 discovery of the presence of spindle cells (interesting that dolphins do not have them):

http://current.com/green/89506460_whales-share-the-unique-brain-cells-that-make-us-human-yeah-brain-science-all-they-way-baby.htm

The mirror-recognition in elephants is a rare trait... a few do, most don't. I love that... like they are right on the cusp.

To me the keys to getting smart are sex-selection by intelligence (requiring a high level of socialized sexuality) and/or having no natural predators (reducing the price of extravagant evolutionary directions)

I would assume that dolphins have an edge over whales because they are over-sexed and highly social... kind of human/chimp-like.

On the other hand, whales and elephants are the two great examples of losing the need to craft tight limited evolutionary solutions in response to predation.

All of the above would be likely candidates for "uplift" in the David Brin "uplift" universe. (A science fiction realm where species do not get to evolve sapience because all pre-sapients are engineered up to sapience by sapient races.)

The fact that dolphins have, in effect, six senses doubtless plays into the morphological brain questions. (Goes for bats also...hmm, second time I've mentioned bats without meaning to. I wonder how smart they are?)

I have to admit, to use aquatic parlance, that I'm in over my head when it comes to evolution theory.

Thanks for the info on Brin. I must check out his "uplift"!

In the science-fiction novel, "Perelandra", C.S. Lewis had his character visiting a fictional Venus in a Garden of Eden-like state, and that god/the universe had gifted the planet with two sentient species, one of the oceans and one of the land. Interesting take, given that the author was a christian and how little was known about animal intelligence when he wrote the book.

Bats are incredible. The slow-mo films of them hunting are amazing! I also wonder just how intelligent they are...

Truly amazing creatures.

and we have no business disrupting their world.

:cry: I can't look. :cry:

I'll go back and edit. Fortunately for these whales they can dive much deeper than the deepest rigs.

How on Earth would a whale aid us with a disaster?

Untold millions of dollars spent on secret missions and research that has been classified since the 1960s. You think they are spending all of that money playing frisbe with them?

And many people say there are no stupid questions...

:hi:

I have neither answers nor stupid questions.

Depends heavily on what the Martian immigration policy is.

Really deep!

Please link to where whales are smarter.

Before the 2009/2010 conclusions of Marino and Reiss many scientists were comparing them to pigs and dogs.
Your question was posted and replied to up-thread (first one, actually). There are some links there as to why I am fairly certain that sperm whales are more intelligent than dolphins. I corrected my op in my first response as none of it is "certain". Neat video, eh?

Additional info: http://neurodudes.com/2007/01/26/spindle-cells-are-in-the-largest-whales/

Thanks

nt

Dolphins swimming in oil. hopefully, "word" will get out and they will too.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRlK3iUyLx8&feature=player_embedded

For one, you have to be aware that there are no whales on Mars. If there is life, there will certainly be an ethical question as to whether we should leave it alone, even if it's only bacterial. Odds are, if there's life more complex than single cells elsewhere in the Solar System, best bets are Europa, Enceladus, etc. But those are crap shoots, and you're not likely to see a Starbucks on those moons any time soon.

So 'what will we do to Mars and other planets'? Hopefully? Honestly? If Mars doesn't have life, I hope we bring it there. I hope we terraform it. Now that we've learned how to warm up a planet that doesn't need it, we can take that knowledge and warm one up that could use it.



Oh, I know, blasphemy.

:hide:

I didn't realize I had written that there are whales on mars. Writing is not my forte.

Seriously, it's like apples and elephants.