04.09.2024 – Elephants ?

Theres nothing I like more than learning about the lies our guests lead when they are not whale watching in Madeira. As awesome as our jobs are sometimes (just sometimes), people’s lives can really wow me. This happened today with a guest who used to work as a conservation ranger in South Africa. Very cool! Furthermore, this led to an interesting observation about bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) societies that I had never considered, which is to compare them to elephants.

To be honest, these two animals haven’t been related for a long time. Both are mammals, but they come from two separate orders (artiodactyls and proboscidea, respectively). These orders, however, hold more simiarity than one might think, containing the largest living land and marine animals (african bush elephant (Loxodonto africana) and blue whale (Balenoptera musculus), respectively). Both orders also hold members who pass the famous “red dot test,” meaning they recognise themselves in the mirror, a feat only achieved by humans, elephants, and some ape and dolphin species.

Socially, both animals are also extremely complex with a language that is communicated at frequencies we cannot hear (dolphins whistles are too high for us, while some elephant grunts are too low). This allows both species to recognise induvial over long distances and after long periods of time. I learnt today that elephant societies are matriarchal with a tight family of mainly females; males are instead solitary and will roam changing between groups for breeding but will also socialise in all male “bachelor pods.” When younger, they are also not territorial; instead of keeping a tight grip on one space, they will roam within a “home  range.” Whilst there are some similarities to dolphins here in another cetacean species, which almost word for word matches the social structure of an elephant and is almost as big! Luckily for this blog, a cetacean of this kind chose to turn up for stenella at 17:00, namely the Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus).

By Peter Worth

Sightings of the Day

Ribeira Brava

09:30 Rough Toothed Dolphins, Bottlenose Dolphins

14:00 Bottlenose Dolphins

Stenella

09:30 Rough Toothed Dolphins, Atlantic Spotted Dolphins

13:30 Bottlenose Dolphins

17:00 Sperm Whale