Dolphins Communicate with 'Fountains of Pee'

Summary

Dolphins Communicate with ‘Fountains of Pee’This discovery adds to a growing list of how animals talk with their urineBy Gennaro Tomma edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Humans typically consider peeing a private act. But for many animals, it’s a crucial way to share information—one that goes way beyond simply marking territory. Scientists are increasingly aware of urine communication in all its startling forms.“Animals in general want to learn as much as they can about other animals, such as their sex, dominance, species, and so on,” says Thomas Breithaupt, a sensory ecologist at the University of Hull in England, “and a lot of information is in the urine.”Recently researchers documented Amazon River dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) performing a curious behavior: aerial urination. A male turns on its back at the water’s surface and ejects a stream of pee into the air—and almost 70 percent of the time, the team reported in Behavioural Processes, a nearby male “receiver” approaches this spontaneous fountain.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The researchers speculate that male dolphins might use aerial peeing to deliberately communicate their “social position or physical condition,” says study co-author Claryana Araújo-Wang, a biologist at Botos do Cerrado Research Project in Brazil. Further experiments are needed to pin down precisely what’s happening, says Joachim Frommen, a behavioral ecologist at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, who was not involved in the study.But this is just the latest in a long and varied list of the stories that urine can tell. In primates, it can provide clues about an individual’s species, gender and group membership “and could support both individual recognition and the finding of mating partners,” s...