How Dolphins Work!

Summary

Stuff You Should Know: "How Dolphins Work!"

Podcast Overview

• Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
• Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
• Episode Title: How Dolphins Work!
• Date: September 2, 2025
• Theme: An exploration of dolphin biology, behavior, intelligence, cultural significance, and the complex relationship between humans and dolphins, sprinkled with the hosts’ trademark humor, tangents, and corrections.

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Main Theme

This episode takes a deep dive into the fascinating world of dolphins. Josh and Chuck break down their evolutionary origins, anatomy, social structure, intelligence, how dolphins communicate, their treatment by humans, and the ethical issues around captivity and entertainment. The hosts clarify common misconceptions, share astonishing facts, and keep the tone light even when discussing some of the heavier topics, like dolphinariums and dolphin hunts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Are Dolphins?

• Classification & Species

  • Dolphins are marine mammals and part of the cetacean group (includes whales and porpoises).
  • "They technically are cetaceans, and that's a marine mammal, along with 80 other types of species, including whales." (Chuck, 03:41)
  • Over 40 species, including both oceanic (Delphinidae) and four types of river dolphins.
  • Orcas are actually the largest members of the dolphin family, not true whales (Chuck & Josh, 11:56).

• Taxonomic Oddities

  • Hosts marvel at the peculiarities of dolphin taxonomy, pointing out how bottlenose dolphins are the "money dolphins" (Josh, 05:22), meaning the most familiar and widely studied.

2. Physical Evolution & Traits

• Land to Sea: Evolutionary History

  • Dolphins evolved from a land-dwelling ancestor (Pakicetus) about 50 million years ago.
  • "Dolphins are more closely related to hippopotami than they are like sea lions or otters..." (Josh, 08:57)
  • Dolphin embryos develop limb buds that get reabsorbed—a clue to their terrestrial past.

• Body Structure

  • Streamlined for swimming, layer of blubber for insulation, steered by pectoral fins and horizontal tail flukes (not vertical like sharks).
  • Dolphins’ dorsal fin stabilizes, pectoral fins help steer (Chuck, 15:04).
  • Notable quote: "Just imagine a kid running around with their arms sticking out like they're pretending to fly. Except dolphins do it for real and in the water." (Josh, 15:09)

• Breathing and Blowholes

  • Air-breathing mammals, breathe through a blowhole connected directly to lungs (Chuck, 17:03).
  • Can drown if unable to surface; blowhole can be closed with a muscular plug.
  • Species spouts are identifiable.

• Sleeping

  • Unihemispheric sleep: they rest one hemisphere of their brain at a time, essentially "sleeping with one eye open." (Josh, 18:57)
  • "Western trope, but dolphins literally do that." (Chuck, 19:32)

3. Senses and Unique Abilities

• Eyesight

  • Excellent underwater and above water due to double-slit pupils for rapid adaptation (Josh, 24:07).
  • 300-degree panoramic vision except directly above.

• Teeth & Feeding

  • Cone-shaped teeth for gripping prey, swallow fish head-first to avoid spines (Chuck, 25:09).

• Hearing & Echolocation

  • Ear canals are vestigial and plugged with earwax—scientists can determine age by analyzing earwax layers (“like counting tree rings,” 26:33).
  • Sound is received through "acoustic fats" in lower jaw.
  • Teeth may serve as amplifiers for returning sonar signals.

• Echolocation

  • "Bats and dolphins are essentially not at all related, so they developed pretty much identical forms of echolocation independently." (Josh, 30:57)
  • Melon (fatty forehead structure) modulates sound waves; used in hunting and navigation.
  • Can detect minute differences (as little as a millimeter) and even internal organs in prey (Josh, 32:09).

4. Communication and Intelligence

• Vocalizations

  • Phonic lips near the blowhole produce whistles, pops, brays.
  • Dolphins have signature whistles that function like names (Chuck, 30:07).
  • Mothers use higher-pitched 'baby talk' with calves (Josh, 30:33).

• Social Structure

  • Highly social; live in pods (from pairs to thousands, typically 40–60).
  • "They can form very long time social relationships." (Chuck, 33:23)
  • Pods can be family groups, juvenile pods, or bachelor pods (Josh, 33:45).

• Play & Culture

  • Exhibit play behavior, such as porpoising in boat wakes, teasing fish (Josh, 37:13).
  • Tool use: certain pods use sponges as foraging tools—a sign of dolphin culture (Josh, 45:08).

5. Sexuality and Controversy

• Reproductive & Sexual Behaviors

  • Long gestation (10–18 months), extended calf care.
  • Engaged in non-conceptive sexual behaviors, including same-sex interactions (Chuck, 40:22).
  • Masturbation, sometimes involving humans in captivity.

• Notorious Experiments

  • Dr. John C. Lilly's 1960s experiments: LSD on dolphins, attempts to teach English, infamous "Peter the Dolphin" episode where a researcher, Margaret Howe Lovett, lived with and "relieved" a dolphin to keep him focused (Josh & Chuck, 42:17–43:30).
  • Disturbing consequences: Peter "appeared to have taken his own life" after the experiment ended (Chuck, 43:51).

6. Human Impact & Ethical Considerations

• Captivity

  • The dolphinarium industry exploded after TV's "Flipper" (1960s onward).
  • Evidence shows captive dolphins, especially orcas, have greatly shortened lifespans (as much as 30 years less for females—Chuck, 46:49).
  • "About half of captive Dolphins die within 90 days of being captured." (Josh, 47:25)
  • SeaWorld ceased orca breeding in 2016 but not for dolphins.

• Military Use

  • US Navy's Marine Mammal Program: dolphins detect mines and tag enemy divers (Josh, 49:07).
  • Rumors of weaponized dolphins ("blowguns," not confirmed by Navy—Chuck, 48:56).

• Violence and Bycatch

  • Rarely attack humans unprovoked; one recorded fatal incident (Tiao the dolphin, Brazil, 1994—Josh, 50:30).
  • Dolphin-watching tourism can disturb their behavior and habitat unless tightly regulated (Chuck, 51:08).

• Protection and Hunting

  • US Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972) outlaws hunting/eating dolphin.
  • Most US-caught canned tuna is "dolphin-safe"—advice for choosing sustainable varieties (Josh, 52:33).
  • Annual drive hunts still occur in Japan (Taiji), Faroe Islands, detailed in "The Cove" and "Seaspiracy" documentaries: "thousands and thousands of dolphins ... corral them and sell some to dolphinarians and slaughter the rest." (Chuck, 54:26).

• Bycatch and Ghost Fishing

  • Bycatch has had devastating population impacts: "since 1950, over 80% of Indian Ocean dolphins may have been killed as bycatch." (Chuck, 55:29)
  • Abandoned fishing gear ("ghost fishing") kills dolphins and other marine life for years (Josh, 56:05).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Dolphins’ Evolutionary Cousins:
  "Dolphins are more closely related to hippopotami than they are like sea lions or otters..."
  — Josh, 08:57

• On Animal Intelligence Comparisons:
  "People should stop comparing animals to humans like that."
  — Chuck, 45:01

• On Signature Whistles:
  "They can use this to basically name each other. They can broadcast their identity and their location to other dolphins because they have signature whistles."
  — Chuck, 30:07

• On Dolphin Play:
  "They’re playing—juveniles play with one another...they sometimes play with their parents...What is that all about?"
  — Josh, 37:11

• On Navy Dolphins:
  "No dolphin has ever killed a person in combat...But there is one recorded instance of a dolphin killing human."
  — Josh, 49:49

• On Dolphinariums:
  "They are just not a species that should be held in captivity. And yet they are."
  — Josh, 46:49

• On Tool Use and Culture:
  "Some groups do that and they learn it from the other members of their pod, which is a cut and dried version of culture...dolphins seem to display it, at least through the sponge tool use."
  — Josh, 45:27

• On the Cruelty of Dolphin Hunts:
  "They round up just thousands and thousands of dolphins and corral them and sell some to dolphinarians and slaughter the rest."
  — Chuck, 54:55

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:41] – Dolphins as cetaceans; species overview
• [08:57] – Evolution from land mammal (Pakicetus)
• [12:17] – Nursing and baby dolphins
• [14:10] – Anatomy: blubber, fins, movement
• [17:03] – Blowholes and breathing
• [18:57] – Unihemispheric sleep ("sleeping with one eye open")
• [24:07] – Vision: panoramic, adaptation to light
• [25:09] – Teeth, feeding habits
• [26:33] – Earwax & age, hearing adaptations
• [30:07] – Signature whistles and communication
• [30:57] – Echolocation and convergent evolution with bats
• [33:23] – Social life: pods, bonds
• [37:13] – Playful behaviors
• [40:22] – Non-conceptive sexual behavior
• [42:17] – Dr. Lilly, Peter the dolphin experiment
• [46:49] – Captivity, shortened lifespans
• [49:07] – Military use by U.S. Navy
• [50:30] – Dolphin fatality: Tiao of Brazil
• [51:08] – Dolphin-watching and tourism impact
• [52:33] – Marine Mammal Protection Act and dolphin-safe tuna
• [54:26] – Dolphin drives/hunts in Japan, Faroe Islands
• [55:29] – Bycatch and Indian Ocean dolphin decline
• [56:24] – Ending on play and mother-infant baby talk

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Conclusion

Josh and Chuck present a rich, engaging survey of dolphin biology and behavior, delighting in the animals’ intelligence and personalities, but also shining a light on the moral murkiness of human-dolphin relationships—especially in captivity and through harmful fishing practices. The episode balances scientific insight, “wowie” facts, and irreverent banter with some sobering truths. By the end, listeners walk away with a deeper appreciation for dolphins’ uniqueness and complexity—and hopefully, a desire to help protect them.

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Listen-Along Quick Index

• Dolphin basics and taxonomy: 03:41–05:46
• Evolutionary history: 08:35–10:17
• Physical traits: 14:10–15:09
• Blowhole and breathing/swimming: 17:03–18:01
• Sleep adaptations: 18:45–19:32
• Sensory adaptations: 24:07–27:22
• Echolocation & communication: 30:07–32:09
• Social structure: 33:23–35:40
• Play, culture, and intelligence: 36:51–45:25
• Captivity, hunting, and ethical issues: 45:51–55:01

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For Further Listening/Viewing

• Documentaries: Blackfish (SeaWorld orca captivity), The Cove (Taiji dolphin hunt), Seaspiracy (fishing bycatch and Faroe Islands hunt)
• Notable Science Reading: Research on dolphin echolocation, communication, and culture

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Stuff You Should Know’s Dolphin “Wowies”

• Dolphins name each other with unique whistles
• They sleep with half their brain at a time
• Tool use and transmission of learned behaviors (culture)
• Exhibit complex emotions, play, and altruism
• Echo-locate with the precision to see inside prey

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Final Note:
This tribute to dolphins is as entertaining as it is educational, reflecting the duo’s joyful, accessible, and often irreverent approach—a perfect primer for dolphin enthusiasts and curious minds alike.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. Jerry's here too. And this is stuff you should know where we use a lot of up speak. So here we go.

[Chuck Bryant]

Was that your dolphin?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I hadn't practiced for a while so it was a little rusty.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, can I just very quickly mention a correction?

[Josh Clark]

Oh sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm freewheeling it here, but we got a lot of emails from people that are in disbelief that we didn't know it's chassis.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I knew it was chassis. I used it correctly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, everyone said that we were saying Chase's and every time I said it.

[Josh Clark]

You were like yeah, I didn't I was. I just didn't correct you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, well, I appreciate that.

[Josh Clark]

Sometimes you don't like to be corrected, or else you're like, I know, I'm just saying it that way. So I just didn't. Not to leave you out there twisting or anything like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, interesting.

[Josh Clark]

If you want, maybe we can retake this whole thing and I'll just. I'll just take it with you. How about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, that's all right. Anyway, I didn't know it was pronounced chassis. Now that I hear it, I've heard that word, but I'm not a car guy, so I don't know these things.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I feel really terrible. I mean, I feel terrible. I'm very sorry. I'll correct you every single time from now on. Okay, great. Okay. I'll just bring the podcast to a screeching halt and be like, no, that was wrong.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, that's really funny.

[Josh Clark]

What a twist, man. I'm sorry, Chuck. So we're talking about dolphins. Is that how it's pronounced?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think so.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, that's how we should say it then. I'm pretty excited about this one, Chuck, because as everybody knows, dolphins are awesome, and we're going to talk about all the reasons why they're awesome. That's pretty much the gist of this episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, you know, dolphins are marine mammals. I guess we should start there. And that entails a whole host of things that we're going to go over. It's not just some fish, but they technically are cetaceans, and that's a marine mammal, along with 80 other types of species, including whales. And if you think porpoises are the same, it's in that same species, so relax.

[Josh Clark]

Right? And I just realized, Chuck, I don't have any of my notes here, so I could try to wing it. Or you can just wait a second and I can go get my notes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Go get your notes, and I'll just continue and no one will be any the wiser.

[Josh Clark]

And then you can fill me in when I get back.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

There are 40 plus species of dolphin, and they are in the family of oceanic dolphins, or Delphinidae. And there's also river dolphins. So I know everyone's out there saying, hey, there's river dolphins out there. There aren't many. There's four river. Not just four, but four kinds of river dolphins, and each one is just one species. So those are the river dolphins.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I've always found that so weird. I mean, I know that taxonomically you're supposed to really kind of stick to it, but there's gotta be a better way, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. But we're. I mean, we're gonna talk a little bit about other kinds, but we're mainly gonna be talking about the bottlenose, of which there are about 600,000, because the bottlenose dolphin is the one that everyone is most familiar with and the ones that are on TV and unfortunately. And dolphinarians.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Where they keep dolphins as hostages.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And make them perform tricks for dopes.

[Josh Clark]

It's crazy. Yeah. So, yeah, bottlenose are the money dolphins. That's what everybody's talking about, and that's what we're gonna talk about. And they. I think they're one of the more studied ones too, even though the common ones. There's so many more of em. But we know that dolphins. Bottlenose dolphins. And yeah, I think basically when we're saying dolphins, unless we specify we're talking about bottlenose dolphins. How's that for some guardrails?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And also speaking of guardrails, we might as well just go ahead and say, I know there'll be plenty of kids listening because they love our animal episodes.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And the dolphin episode gets a little, you know, a. Not blue necessarily. It gets a little sexy here and there. But, you know, that's just the deal with dolphins.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so, yeah, so I think that was a pretty good coa man, because it does get a little, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, hey, I feel like this is all, like, scientific stuff, so we should be able to handle it and kids should be able to handle it. But if there are any adults that are like, what are you talking about? Then do the little research first.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Oh, so I think I was talking about how bottlenose dolphins are pretty well studied and that we know that they live for about 45 to 50 years.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

That's in the wild.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, of course.

[Josh Clark]

I know we've talked about plenty of animals over the years where they actually live longer in captivity, usually because they're just food for other larger animals. That's not true with dolphins. Their lifespan is usually much shorter, and that's controversial. We'll talk about that later. But we know that in the wild, 50 years, it's a pretty aged dolphin, if you think about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, agreed. That's a nice long life, I think, for a sea creature.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. What more can they ask for? Stop complaining. Dolphins.

[Chuck Bryant]

There was one supposedly that was 67 years old, presumed dead in 2017.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But my friend, I Like to think that that dolphin is 75 right now.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. I think that's a great way to look at things.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So do you kind of see dolphins closer to shore? Sometimes. They are basically just out to sea. It depends on the species. I think common dolphins stay fairly close to shore. Bottlenose will get right up on you. Essentially the place where Yumi and I used to live, kind of along the coast in our backyard, dolphins would swim. There's like a lagoon. And now that I've. I know a little more about dolphins, I always assumed they were bottlenose, but now that I know a little more, I think that they are probably common dolphins.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, there's a lot more. There's like millions and millions of those and about 600,000 bottlenose. So just statistically you're probably right.

[Josh Clark]

Precisely. And then the other reason that I think that is because they. They would basically put on a show chasing fish. They jump out of the water and they chase the fish backwards. It was really something to see. And apparently the common dolphins are more acrobatic than bottlenose.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. And they might have been playing as we'll see. You never know.

[Josh Clark]

It's possible they might have been teasing the poor fish.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you are somewhere where you can look up safely on the computer, an image, you should look up P A K I C E T U S. The. I guess the Pachacetus.

[Josh Clark]

You nailed it, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

That is the common ancestor that dolphins share. That was around about 50 million years ago. And if you look at it and say, well, wait a minute, Chuck, this thing's walking around on four legs with fur. That's because that's where dolphins came from. It's pretty remarkable when you look at it. It looks like when you see the head of that thing, you can see the dolphin in it, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So dolphins are more closely related to hippopotami than they are like sea lions or otters or anything like that that are also aquatic or semi aquatic. And it's because this Pakicetus basically moved to the water little by little by little. And it's one of those rare evolutions where we have like a complete fossil record from Pachecus to dolphin. We know all of the iterations that went through over the tens and tens of millions of years. But that's. I mean, that's where dolphins came from. They were basically these wolf size creatures.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And one of them, I guess, spent a little extra time in the water and was like, you guys, this is fantastic. Like, you should come in here we should all just stay a little longer. And then before you know it, their legs turned into flippers. I think it was like two or three days.

[Josh Clark]

What's cool, too, is there when dolphins are in the embryonic stage, they actually start to develop limbs.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And before the genes kick in and, well, actually kick off, I guess, and they stop developing and then get absorbed, but they're like in a stage of development, they start to grow limbs. So that's. I mean, that's pretty good indication that they used to be land mammals.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they have vestigial ears, as we'll see too. But I'll just kind of tease that out.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And then. So the speciation from land mammal to semiaquatic mammal to fully aquatic mammal, the dolphin, was complete when somebody mentioned being wet to a dolphin and the dolphin said, what is wet?

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was my understanding from the National History Museum.

[Chuck Bryant]

So like we said, they're going to share some characteristics with land mammals, but they have a lot of really cool traits. And some of these are like, you may know. And some of these are just. I mean, if you're wondering why people are obsessed with dolphins, it's not just because they go to a dolphin show and think they're awesome or maybe that's why you might be obsessed with them. Listener. But there are so many remarkable, amazing facts about dolphins. They just kind of stack up. Like usually when we do animal episodes or like one or two fact of the episodes, but this is just riddled with them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So let's start. And also, big shout out. Thanks to Kyle for helping us out with this one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, Kyle. Okay. Thanks, mate.

[Josh Clark]

Or no, it's probably Chile now that I think about it. I feel terrible. Chuck, I'm so sorry, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

So. That's okay. So they're placental mammals, so they're not gonna lay eggs like you might see a fish do in the water. They bear live young, and it depends on the species, but their pregnancies are gonna be between about 10 and 18 months. I don't think I mentioned while you were gone that orcas are part of this group or species.

[Josh Clark]

Family.

[Chuck Bryant]

Family. Okay. I knew it was one of them.

[Josh Clark]

They're actually dolphins. They're not real whales.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. So I think the orcas have the longest gestation period of about 18 months. But it's very cute because they're gonna nurse those calves sometimes up to two years at a minimum of six months. And those little babies stay with mama for up to five years.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like toddlers. Isn't that Adorable.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

One thing that I hadn't considered is that. So dolphins nurse underwater.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wait a minute. Do you think after your child passes toddlerhood, they're just sent out to the wild?

[Josh Clark]

That was my understanding from the National History Museum again. Okay, good. They're really misinforming me, apparently. So. One thing I hadn't thought of as I was saying is that a dolphin as to nurse underwater, which could be kind of hard, and then adding to the fact that they don't have lips that they can kind of latch onto a nipple with, it's a puzzler. And it turns out that the way that they nurse is by rolling their tongue into essentially a straw.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And that's what they latch onto. And apparently we know that it's not the tastiest milk as far as a human palate is concerned, thanks to a scientist named Lillian Eichelberger, who I guess on a dare drank some dolphin milk and was like, it's fishy, oily, it lacks sweetness. No, sir, I don't like it. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And if you think that's a weird thing to do while studying dolphins, just strap in.

[Josh Clark]

Because that's true.

[Chuck Bryant]

Things get much weirder. That was 1940. Things got weird in the 70s, as we'll see. But it's got like a milkshake consistency, which is why I guess the straw shaped tongue kind of fits. I guess.

[Josh Clark]

I guess so, yeah. So they have to swim. Obviously they don't have to swim to survive because they breathe air. So it's not like they need air to pass across gills to survive.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right, Good point.

[Josh Clark]

But they do swim quite a bit. They're known for it. Their bodies are actually streamlined to help them swim even more. One thing I also didn't know is that the pectoral fins, the ones that stand up off the back, where you're like, shark. And then your friend says, no, it's dolphin. And you go, oh, a dolphin, they have no bone, I believe there's just cartilage. And they use those to help to steer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. It's like a little steering unit. They have a layer of blubber. You associate blubber with whales, but the dolphin has blubber too, which is gonna provide a little bit of buoyancy. If they haven't had food in a while, just like humans do, they can sort of devour their own fat. Helps out with body heat. And then besides that steering, they have two horizontal flukes on the tail, so they move vertically. So that's another great way to tell a shark from a dolphin Aside from just opening your eyeballs, because I think they look quite different. But the shark, you know, has that vertical tail that sort of goes from side to side. The dolphins is flipped and to me looks like a more efficient system. But that's just a guess.

[Josh Clark]

You'd think so. The sharks seem to do pretty well for themselves, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And real quick intro correction, I guess the dorsal fin is the one on top, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's for the stability. The steering comes from those little side flippers, the pectoral fins.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Okay, I definitely got that wrong. So to, like reimagine it, just imagine a kid running around with their arms sticking out like they're pretending to fly. Except dolphins do it for real and in the water. Those are the big differences.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Or like a kid running with their arms to the side like in the terrifying new movie Weapons.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, don't tell me anything about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's funny that you always say that, even though I've never told you anything about anything.

[Josh Clark]

Well, you just told me that. I just want you to stop right there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, it's on the poster.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. All right. So, yeah, I can't wait to see that movie. I'm very excited. And you said to see it in the theater, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, I recommend it. I was at a sold out 10:30am so people are pretty hyped about it. But it was also kind of neat. There were at least 20 local Atlanta crew, as it turned out, because when the credits started rolling, they were all hanging out and, like, clapping for each other.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, neat. That's very supportive. Did you know any of them?

[Chuck Bryant]

I did, but I didn't know until afterward when Emily said that my friend Stephanie worked on it, and I was like, oh, she might have been one of those people.

[Josh Clark]

That's very cool. So, yeah, I want to see that movie. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Back to dolphins.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So dolphins are also known for as far as they swim, they kind of jump in and out of the water and can go quite fast doing that. It's called porpoising, Much to dolphin chagrin. And it turns out it's not just porpoises and dolphins that swim like that. Penguins do too. And I was like, no way. This came from the National History Museum. So I had to go double check. And by God, I saw a video of penguins swimming super fast, faster than dolphins and. And they were porpoising in and out of the water. It was really something to see. Have you not seen that before? Not that I know of. I mean, I forget stuff. So it's possible, but it seemed pretty shocking to me when I saw it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dolphins are also pretty good smellers. They have a blowhole. It's basically like nostrils and it's above the frontal skull bones. And it's kind of cool because it connects right to their lungs. They're not mouth breathers, even though apparently they did find a mouth breathing Hector's dolphin, which are dolphins near New Zealand in 2015. Yeah, so I don't know what that says about that guy, but he was a mouth breather. But that blowhole, like I said, is connected directly to the lungs and they can open it and close it with a nasal plug and they can fill that thing up very, very fast. Like in a fraction of a second, they can fill up their lungs through the blowhole. They only breathe five or six times a minute and they can't stay underwater all day. But they can stay down there for a few minutes at a time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. But if they stay down there too long and they run out of air, they can drown. They are air breathing mammals.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, don't forget that.

[Chuck Bryant]

The saddest thing I could imagine.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which we'll get to that later.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And the blow hole also does a really good job of expelling air because again, this is like, it's like our mouth breathing in and out, except on the top of our head. So when they breathe out, especially having been underwater for a little while, they're breathing out warm air into usually colder air because the sea temperature is usually warmer than the surface temperature in a lot of cases. And it'll condense. And that's what their spout is like. You can see it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's pretty cool. And apparently you can tell different species apart by the kind of spout they have, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yep. From what I understand, I couldn't, but I think scientists can.

[Chuck Bryant]

Why don't you take the unihemispheric sleep? Because that's pretty remarkable and you haven't had a wowie.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, thanks. Also, I have a correction that I want to put in too. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

So we're talking about what dolphins do is unihemispheric sleep, which is because they are in danger of predation because they don't stop and like, you know, fall to the bottom of the ocean. They actually have to keep going while they're sleeping. So what they do is shut down half of their brain and the other half just kind of keeps an eye on things. And then when the one brain, one side of the brain has had enough Sleep, it switches over to the other hemisphere and then that one takes its turn to sleep and the other one takes over to kind of stand guard.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that sleeping with one eye open is kind of an old, like, western trope. But that's like, so funny that dolphins literally do that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. And that actually ties in Chuck Uni hemispheric sleep to our Zizians episode because they were trying to figure out how to do that themselves, which seems to be impossible for humans from what I can tell. And by the way, stay tuned for listener mail because I have a correction related to the Zizians episode. So this is like a correction loused episode. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Should we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Yes, I think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, we'll come back with correction fest right after this. All right, we're back with more on dolphins. No more corrections, I promise. They have, and this is, to me, another, like, fact of the show, they have incredible eyesight. They see really, really well within about 150ft. And they do this because they have two kind of slightly flattened eyeballs on, you know, the sides of their head. When you look at a dolphin, they're kind of on the side.

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[Josh Clark]

Hey everybody. We want to talk to you about Squarespace. And in particular, if you have a great idea that you want to sell on the web. Well, Squarespace makes it easy to sell access to content on your websites.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. You can do online courses, you can do blogs, videos, memberships, you can even earn recurring revenue by gating your content behind a paywall. Simply set the price and choose whether to charge a one time fee or a subscription for access.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. And you can get your content discovered fast with integrated SEO tools. Every squirt Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions, an auto generated sitemap, and more. So you show up more often to more people in global search engine results.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just go to squarespace.com stuff and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use our offer code stuff to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this.

[Josh Clark]

Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone to land this plane.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this until this, pull that, turn this. It's just, I can do my eyes closed. I'm Manny.

[Josh Clark]

I'm Noah. This is Devin.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

And on our new show, no Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence.

[Josh Clark]

Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the Runway. I'm looking at this thing. See, listen to no Such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you, you get your podcasts.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they see from both simultaneously. And then like us with binocular vision, they stitch it together to see one thing. But what that results in is a 300 degree panoramic view where they can see basically anywhere they want except right above them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's their one blind spot is above them. And apparently if they're trying to get a really good look at you, they'll tilt their head down and try to look at you like that. It's pretty cute.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So they actually do have really good eyesight underwater and above water. And the way that they can transition from a fairly dark environment to a bright, you know, sunny environment is because they have a double slit in their pupils. So when their pupils are wide open and say they're kind of, they've dived deep and there's not a lot of light, so they're trying to capture all of it. It looks like they have two tiny pupils. But then as they come up to the surface and they get closer to the sun, one of their pupils or one of the slits closes and it narrows. So they don't take in quite as much light. So they can see pretty well. And they're apparently up to 150ft. They have just really great eyesight from what we can tell.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And they, you know, it's important that they can do that out of the water. Cause when they porpoise and jump out, they want to see everyone going, oh, my God, Larry, look. Then they give him a little wink.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. Yeah. And it makes a ding sound.

[Chuck Bryant]

They have teeth and they're not like, you know, big scary shark teeth. They're kind of cone shaped. They eat fish, of course, crustaceans, squid. And they use their beak, it's also called a rostrum, but we just call it a beak. And, you know, they'll grip that prey and they swallow it whole. Smart enough to know. And we'll get to how smart they are later. But they're smart enough to know that they got to swallow this fish head first so they don't catch those spines on their throats. And if they come up against like a catfish or something that's got like, really, you know, spiky, spiny things coming off their head, they'll bite those heads off and eat the rest of it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'll bet that's a sight to see.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So they also have really good hearing, which makes sense because they use echolocation, which we'll talk about. But they have ear canals just like us. But they're totally useless. They're vestigial. They don't connect to anything. And in fact, they're plugged up with some pretty serious earwax that everybody just kind of considered a curiosity of whales and dolphins, that they have big plugs of earwax in their ear canals that don't connect anything. And scientists realized, like, oh, actually they put down layer after layer throughout their life. And you can examine an earplug or a plug of earwax of a dolphin or a whale and pretty closely estimate how old it is. Like you're counting tree rings.

[Chuck Bryant]

So cool.

[Josh Clark]

I think so, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

I love that. And they can also get into that earwax and analyze it and see what kind of pollutants it was exposed to and stuff like that. Maybe hormone fluctuations. So, yeah, that's pretty awesome. And that's fairly recent, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I don't know exactly when, but it is a fairly recent finding for sure. So, yeah, look for more Talk about dolphin earwax in the future.

[Chuck Bryant]

They don't listen exactly like we do, but they receive high frequency sounds through. And this is a pretty good band name, Acoustic fats in their lower jaw. And that's gonna vibrate through their skull. And they have these. I guess they're unattached internal ear bones that pick up this. This sound from the acoustic fats.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So they can hear sounds. But it's also really useful for echolocation too, where they send a click out and then wait for it to bounce off something and come back. It's received through that jawbone.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And apparently because the teeth are so close to the nerves that transmit this impulse, they think that the teeth might actually act as amplifiers. And I wonder if that has to do with the cone shape too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, maybe so.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, a cone is a very common way to amplify a sound.

[Josh Clark]

It is like an old timey cheerleader. Yeah, totally.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, that's just another amazing fact. Navies use sonar, so it's. And we'll get into this a little bit more. But you know, everyone has sort of heard the stories about the damage that's done by ships and navies and exploding things underwater.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. One of the largest dolphin strandings took place because of sonar. There was a big multinational naval exercise in the Arabian Sea in 2009.

[Chuck Bryant]

I remember that. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And 200 dolphins just stranded themselves just trying to get away from the horrible sounds. So, yeah, we've talked about this before. It's a real issue. That's just nothing's being done about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's. Yeah, there's a lot of sadness in this episode for sure. They do vocalize. Just rewind and listen to Josh at the beginning. If you want to hear exactly what it sounds like, don't bother going to YouTube or anything. They vocalize with whistles and pops and brays. They make these sounds with something called phonic lips. And those are near the blowhole.

[Josh Clark]

That's a good one too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did you say band name?

[Josh Clark]

That's a good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sonic Youth and Flaming Lips got together for a Superman. I just saw the Flaming Lips and they were great. Hadn't seen them in years. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's really, really good.

[Josh Clark]

I've never seen them. I'm sure their shows are pretty great.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's pretty fun. But they have a larynx at the base of the blowhole and that larynx is going to be able to sort of move and modulate sound by letting air Kind of go through at different rates of speed.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then they also have something called a melon, which is a big mass of fat in their forehead, which is melon head. Pretty. Yeah, it's pretty characteristic of dolphins. Look. But that melon is actually able to focus sound like a lens. The little fatty lump moves around. They can move it, which is pretty cool. Like those people who can move their forehead up and down.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

I think that's essentially what they're doing and focuses the sound, including their echolocation.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And get this. Here's another fact of the episode. I'll take this one. You can take the next one.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

They can use this to basically name each other. They can broadcast their identity and their location to other dolphins because they have signature whistles. So they come up with their own whistle, they make that sound. And everyone knows that's Josh over there. Josh the dolphin.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, my name sounds like in dolphin.

[Chuck Bryant]

And talk about what mommies do, too. That's another wowie.

[Josh Clark]

Well, they found that they use baby talk. They use higher frequency whistles and essentially use baby talk with their own calves, which is adorable.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Are we at echolocation finally?

[Josh Clark]

I think so. This is a pretty cool. This is the last fact. The rest of the stuff we're going to talk about is so dry. You might as well just stop the episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, not true. But you take this because it's a wowie. It's essentially just like bats, right?

[Josh Clark]

It is. And they figured out that bats and dolphins are essentially not at all related. So they. They developed pretty much identical forms of echolocation independently. It's an example of convergent evolution. But what they do is they produce these clicks. They use the melon to focus those things like a laser. And they can not only. So they're bouncing a sound wave off of something, it's coming back, and then it is translated into a mental map. So essentially they're seeing. They're experiencing a form of vision like we would think of it, but they're doing it through sonar, essentially their own form of sonar. And it's like really, really accurate, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, they've done some studies and they found that they were able to distinguish different disc sizes by as little as 1/10 of a centimeter or 400ths of an inch.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Which is very small. And I thought that was weird. 1/10 of a centimeter. I was like, that sounds familiar. And then I realized it's a millimeter. I don't know why anyone would put it like that. That's why you have the metric system.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, you should ask Kyle.

[Josh Clark]

Isn't that bizarre? Yeah. So their echolocation is quite amazing. And I've seen also that they can see internal organs in other animals. That's how penetrative, I guess their echolocation is and just how nuanced it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know Predator is heat based, but that's what I think of.

[Josh Clark]

That's funny you say that. I watched that two days ago.

[Chuck Bryant]

The og yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And I was like, this is definitely tied with, I guess Commando for Schwarzenegger's best movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

I saw Predator, the original one, but I didn't like follow up with the whole Predator universe.

[Josh Clark]

No, I didn't either. I just watched the first one again and I was like, man, this is good.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think those new ones are supposed to be good prey. And then that other one coming up.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really? They're supposed to be good.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's what I heard.

[Josh Clark]

Isn't there like a Predator versus Jason? Didn't it get to like as off the rails as that they did?

[Chuck Bryant]

Predator versus Alien, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't see that either. And I love the Alien universe too.

[Josh Clark]

I guarantee Danny McBride's in that. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So dolphins are very social and that's one of the reasons also that people love them because you often see them swimming in large pods and seeming like they're having a good time together. It's because they basically are. Pods can be as small as two or up to a thousand, but generally they're between 40 and 60 and. And they can form very long time social relationships.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, there's different kinds of pods. There's like, you know, the pod pod, the original one. There's a bunch of different dolphins that some have familial ties, some don't. There's juvenile pods where they, the kids reach, I guess the end of toddler stage and they're like, go on, go form your own pod. So a bunch of them about the same age will form a pod together. There's bachelor pods, which is usually two, sometimes three males that essentially just form their own jam and cruise around together, sometimes forming lifelong friendships. And all of them have their advantages. Like it's easier to hunt, it's easier to defend against something trying to kill you. It's easier to pass down knowledge from one generation to another, which we'll talk about in a second. So there's all sorts of advantages, but because of their social nature, they do have a lot of traits that you're like, wow, that's really human.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, yeah, for sure. This is, I told Emily about this one and she's like, well, that's B.S. but this is sometimes what happens. It's fairly rare, but sometimes males will team up and steal a female dolphin from another pod and basically keep her captive and prevent her from returning. And it looks like what they think is going on is they have a situation where they need a female because their long gestation period is. And lactation keeps them from being available to breed for sometimes years at a time. So they're like, we got a breed, we're going to go take her and keep her here.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There's just high competition for females. So it's not the most tasteful dolphin fact around. So we'll follow that one up with a more heartwarming one where they also have been observed in plenty of instances to engage in altruistic behavior, like social behavior where they don't leave behind like sick or injured friends.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, go ahead, tell them about that. One thing.

[Josh Clark]

I think this was in the mid 2000, I think, whatever. There was a group of 11 dolphins that essentially swam together to form a raft with their injured companion in the middle to keep them from, from like sinking and dying.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I mean that's pretty amazing altruistic behavior. I think they've also seen other ones do that too. It's not like this is a one time thing. So that's a pretty. I mean there's a lot of animals that are out there like, oh, you're sick, good luck dying. We're moving on. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or I'll eat you.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly, yeah. Dolphins don't do that. They try to take care of their peeps.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing. All right, I say we take our second break.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

And we come back with more on the amazing dolphin right after this.

[Josh Clark]

So Chuck, one of the great things about dolphins is that we know that they play. It's not anthropomorphizing. They're playing juveniles play with one another. They sometimes play with their parents. They'll swim around the head of another dolphin and just kind of tease them. We talked about them teasing fish earlier. What is that all about?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean sometimes.

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[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this.

[Josh Clark]

Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone to land this plane.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this. Until this, pull that, turn this. It's just, I can do my eyes closed. I'm Manny.

[Josh Clark]

I'm Noah. This is Devin.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

And on our new show, no Such Thing, we get to the bottom of question questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence.

[Josh Clark]

Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the Runway. I'm looking at this thing.

[Josh Clark]

See?

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Listen to no Such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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[Chuck Bryant]

They'Ve been observed doing that. Like, they'll go up and not eat a fish, but they'll, like, get the fish's tail in its mouth and being like, kind of like, I got your nose. And then they'll swim away and the fish is like, what just happened?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then swimming, porpoising in the waves of ships that are traveling fairly fast. They think essentially that's for thrills and kicks. Yeah, that's so cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[Josh Clark]

There are also gay dolphin behaviors as well, where those male friends for life in the bachelor pods, they'll have sex.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, isn't that the whole point of the bachelor pod?

[Josh Clark]

I think so, you know. Yeah, that and playing video games together afterwards.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, this is where, you know, it gets a little sexy. But they basically, on a daily basis, they've observed dolphins exhibiting what's called non conceptive sexual behavior. So they're not trying to reproduce, they're getting together and having a good time for the fun of it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And that NCSB for the churchgoers, that also includes masturbation. Apparently captive dolphins do that every day, which makes sense because they've got nothing else to do, so they're just kind of bored. But they will use walls. Other dolphins, they'll use trainers sometimes for stimulation. Yeah. And that actually happens.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I saw too. They might lean up against a washing machine from time to time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, pretty good. Is that real? Is that just a trope or is that real?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm sure it's happened. All right, let's talk. Let's clean this thing up. Well, actually, we can't clean it up because we're about to talk about something else like that. We're talking about dolphin's intelligence and we know they're smart. And a lot of that comes from a guy named Dr. John C. Lilly in the 1960s, who really put dolphins on the map in a bigger way by saying that they're probably as intelligent as we are. He did some pretty awful experiments, like injecting them with lsd. He mapped unsedated dolphins cerebral cortex with probes, and he was involved in a very infamous experiment in 1963. I said it was the 70s, it was the 60s, when he got a woman named Margaret Howell Lovett and paired her with a dolphin named Peter in a flooded apartment so they could live together and learn more about each other.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So Lily was obsessed with the idea that dolphins could learn English, not just to understand it, but to speak it. Because sometimes, apparently they'll mimic people speaking a little bit with one of their squeaks. So he's like, they clearly want to communicate. That's why he injected him with lsd. That's why he had Peter live with Margaret and she was supposed to teach him how to say, hello, Margaret. But apparently, though, the lessons would get interrupted because Peter was rather randy dolphin. He was captive after all. So Margaret Howe Lovett became known as the woman who would manually Satisfy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Relief.

[Josh Clark]

Relief. And she was like, yes, I realize this is a very odd behavior. And apparently Hustler picked this up and wrote all about it, this crazy thing that was going on. And she was like, look, I'm trying to actually interact with the dolphin, teach the dolphin this. And Peter just can't focus on anything else. So it's like an itch. You scratch it and then you move on. And of course that's what everybody talked about, but.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Eventually the funding dried up and Peter was essentially just kicked out of the apartment. Is separated from Margaret, who he'd essentially adopted as either a pod member or his girlfriend or something. He had a very strong attachment to her and they just ripped him away from her. And it did not go very well.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, he did not say so long and thanks for all the fish. He very sadly appeared to have taken his own life. He just kind of sunk himself to the bottom and didn't breathe anymore.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. How sad is that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, dude. I mean, you put this dolphin in an apartment with this woman and then that happens.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then he seemingly kills himself.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you ever see a dolphin in captivity, it's a really horrible thing to see, especially if it's like just indoors. It's worse than other animals, I think. And I don't think any animal should be kept in captivity, but dolphins seem to be. It's just worse, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, to me, when you're talking about an ocean dwelling species, that's a big area, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they are smart. Sort of a long way of getting around to saying we know they're super smart. We've seen their vocalizations and their social relationships and how they can learn and mimic things. But you know, saying like they're as smart as humans, it's just a weird. People should stop comparing animals to humans like that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's a great point, Chuck. I mean, they're their own thing. Let's understand them on their own terms.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly. Meet em where they're at, as they say.

[Josh Clark]

We do know they use tools. There is just. There's some dolphins that have been shown to basically attach a sponge to their rostrum, their beak or their schnoz when they're hunting for food or foraging for food on the sea floor to basically cushion it. Isn't that neat?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's amazing. Like a little bumper.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But even more amazing than that is that not all dolphins do that. Some groups do that and that they learn it from the other members of their pod, which is a cut and dried version of culture that fits essentially all of the boxes for culture. And culture is very rare in the animal kingdom, and dolphins seem to display it, at least through the sponge tool use.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So this is sort of the saddest part of the episode is when we talk about captive dolphins and kind of what's. How humans have kind of screwed it all up, as usual. But there has been dolphin entertainment for a long time, since the 19th century. But things really grew after the TV show Flipper in the 1960s. There were three dolphinariums before that, and by 2009, there were a hundred all over the world. And while trade is illegal in the U.S. mexico, and Europe, they are captured at different places in the world. And we're gonna talk about some specifically, like Japan and Taiwan. But the rate of mortality is disputed. If you want to look at SeaWorld's research, they're going to say it's really not that different. If you're going to look at research by people who used to work at SeaWorld and don't anymore, they'll say, no. Male orcas live 15 years less in captivity and females as much as 30. So just. I think that speaks for itself.

[Josh Clark]

And there was also a 1988 study, Chuck, in the journal Marine Mammal Science, and it found that about half of captive Dolphins die within 90 days of being captured. So this is not. They're just not a species or a family or a type of animal that should be held in captivity. And yet they are. SeaWorld very famously in 2016, said that they were no longer going to breed orcas, but that they weren't about to retire the orcas that they still had left. That was largely thanks to the documentary blackfish, which you've never seen that. Go watch it right now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, really good one.

[Josh Clark]

But they still have captive breeding programs for their dolphins, and those don't seem to be going anywhere either.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, some people, you know, make an argument that, you know, studying these things in captivity is like how we. How we learn about them, which is obviously true to a certain degree. But dolphin experts will say, hey, you're not learning about their real habitat if you're studying a dolphin in captivity, because they're in captivity, like, their behaviors change. Like, you know, all kinds of things are different because they're swimming around in a pool rather than the ocean.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like, imagine putting a human into solitary confinement long enough for them to become totally insane. And studying their behavior and extrapolating it onto the rest of humanity, that's essentially what the critics are Saying that people who study animals in captivity are doing. It's tough to disagree with that, as far as I'm concerned.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They're also used by the U.S. navy. They're the second largest holder of marine mammals in the United States behind SeaWorld. Yeah, they started this program, the marine mammal program for the Navy in 1959, and by the 1980s, they had over 100 dolphins. I think that number has ticked down to, like, the mid-70s ish now. But, you know, if you've heard stories of, like, dolphins used in war with, like, lasers on their head. They don't have lasers on their head, but there have been some verified reports that dolphins have, like, blowguns on their head.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, was that verified? I know that there's certainly rumors.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, not verified as in, like, the U.S. navy verified it, but I think there have been people that are like, no, this is happening. And they've observed it in the Soviet space as well.

[Josh Clark]

Well, for the. For the most part, what they're used is to either identify mines, like find and identify mines, because their echolocation can. Can detect the void inside the casing of a mine that's buried under mud. And they'll go tag it, essentially, or they'll look for swimmers or divers who are trying to sabotage, like, a ship or something, and they'll go up and basically bump them and put a tracker on that diver and then let the Navy people take over and track that person. So the Navy's like, no dolphin has ever killed a person in combat. It just has never happened. But there is one recorded instance of a dolphin killing human. And from what I can tell, it sounds just.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, this was in 1994. There was a dolphin near Sao Paulo, Brazil, that was named Tiao, and he was very friendly and gregarious and was well known around the area for, like, hanging out with people and had a lot of bad human interactions as a result of that. This guy was harassing him, apparently. There were also. There was also a case where he injured 29 swimmers. They were trying to ride him and put popsicle sticks in his blowhole. This guy was harassing him, and he. And he basically nosed him in the abdomen, and the guy died from internal bleeding.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like, Tiao. He wasn't a naval dolphin, by the way. He was just. This is just the one example of somebody of a dolphin killing a person. But, yeah, he. He was very, very friendly, and he had to put up with a lot of crud, but he would. He would dish it back out if you pushed him past the past, the point of no return. He apparently, after the guy died, Tiao has left. And they haven't seen him since. He fled the. He fled the interview?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he's fleeing the interview. Dolphin watching is also, you know, you might think, like, hey, that's a pretty innocuous thing to ride around a boat and look at these things.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

There are companies that supposedly do it responsibly, but that's after, like, you know, we had to get involved and say, hey, you can't feed them. That happened in the early 1990s. Like, they're getting hit by boats because they're trying to, like, say, hey, you want to see some dolphins? Let's chum the water or whatever. Or not chummer. Whatever they use. And they put, like, time limits and distance limits. If those are followed, then, you know, that's better. But any kind of boat activity like that is just going to disturb their normal activity. And if there are too many boats around, these dolphins will just be like, all right, I got to relocate somewhere maybe far away. And maybe they're not even able to do that safely, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah. In that sense, it's still not enough regulation or protection of the dolphins. But you can make a pretty good case that the United States has some good laws in place that do protect dolphins. There's one that was passed in 1972, the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And among other things, it basically said, you're not allowed to eat dolphin in the United States. They used to hunt dolphin and eat dolphin. And apparently people who have eaten dolphin are like, that's pretty good. But you can't do that in the US anymore. Not since the swinging 70s. And some people are like, well, you're eating dolphin when you. When you eat canned tuna. That seems to be quite untrue.

[Chuck Bryant]

There's People say that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, there's canned tuna that says it's dolphin safe. That doesn't mean that dolphins aren't being caught in bycatch. It means that there's no dolphin in your tuna. But there are types of tuna fishing that are much safer for dolphins than others. So if you care about that and you love canned tuna, look for a canned tuna that says it's either pole caught, pole and line caught, troll caught, free school, or school caught, or fad free. Any of those are much less likely to accidentally catch and kill dolphins when they're fishing for tuna.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. I always thought tuna was chicken of the sea. No.

[Josh Clark]

Did you ever see that episode of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's Nope. It was insane. Like, I saw that one and like, what one?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't even know what you're talking about.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, she was confused. She was eating a can of tuna, of chicken of the sea tuna. And she's like, I thought it was chicken. But then he's like, no, you know it's tuna. She's like, no, I know it's tuna, but I thought it was chicken. And just like, you'll start bleeding out of your ear if you try to follow it too closely.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, interesting.

[Josh Clark]

That was something. That show was actually surprisingly good.

[Chuck Bryant]

You watched it?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, back in the day. That surprises me. It surprises me, too, now that I think about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Josh of now wouldn't watch that, right?

[Josh Clark]

Probably not. No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Josh of yore.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, I watched Bret Michaels Rock of Love. That was. That's my one reality TV show, Scar.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, that's not. That's. Yeah, I was gonna say it's not too bad. It's pretty bad.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was pretty bad. But that's your boy.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, he's one of them. The whole crew is my boys. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Cece, the gang.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Bobby Doll and Ricky Rocket. I got it.

[Josh Clark]

Nice work, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dolphin hunting, though, still happens in other places around the world. We promise to talk about it a little bit, but there are drive hunts, very infamous ones, that happen in Taiji, Japan, and the Faroe Islands. And there's another great documentary from 2009 called the COVID about the Japanese hunt. And it's awful to watch, but they round up just thousands and thousands of dolphins and corral them and sell some to dolphinarians and slaughter the rest.

[Josh Clark]

You've seen it? I don't think I could see it, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, don't bother. You know the deal.

[Josh Clark]

There's also another documentary from Netflix called Seaspiracy, not the best name ever, but it's about the Ginda Drop, which is an annual dolphin hunt in the Faroe Islands off of Denmark. And it's essentially the same thing. They're driven into a corral and then killed by knife. And I think in 2021, 1400 dolphins were killed in the Gindadrop that year, which was a record with knives.

[Chuck Bryant]

Geez. We did talk about bycatch a little bit. There was a study in 2020 that found that 50. Since 1950, over 80% of Indian Ocean dolphins may have been killed as bycatch. 80%, with about 80,000 total cetaceans caught each year. And then there's ghost fishing, which we did an episode on and that's when just the fishing industry as a whole ends up killing animals in the ocean ship strike and predation and starvation and getting caught up in nets and lines and all that awful stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, when they abandon their old fishing gear they can't use anymore, and it just floats around and can kill animals in the sea for hundreds of years. It's nuts. We should end this on a high note, Chuck. So just a reminder that dolphin moms use whistles to baby talk with their dolphin calves.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And they play with each other.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. For sure. That's it for dolphins, everybody. Hopefully you like this one. We loved it. We might just do it again, who knows? But in the meantime, while we figure that out, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is a. You remember the Volkswagen episode in the lemon ad? We. We weren't sure exactly what that was all about. Oh yeah, we heard from a lot of people. This is from Lori, and I'm trusting Lori because Lori is an advertising copywriter.

[Josh Clark]

Oh good.

[Chuck Bryant]

She says. Hey, guys. Confusion about the famous VW lemon ad created by Bill Bernbach at DDB. The body copy is about VW's preoccupation with every detail. Each bug goes through a rigorous inspection process. 189 checkpoints. If there's any issue at all, no matter how small, the car doesn't leave the factory. So the car in this ad has a scratch on the glove compartment. So it's a lemon. Apparently there was fine print in the ad that explained this. One more thing though, guys. All good ad campaigns begin with an insight. A simple sentence, a nugget of emotional truth that determines how the brand speaks to consumers and how consumers relate to the brand. The insight for the VW Beetle. You don't buy a Beetle, you adopt it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, wow, that's neat.

[Chuck Bryant]

We just got Don Drapered by Lori.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we did. Way to go, Lori. That was a really great email. Hats off to you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and Lori is a BW Beetle owner as well, so she ticks all the boxes for sure.

[Josh Clark]

I trust Lori. That's a new stuff you should know T shirt.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

Also, Chuck, I want to take a second to put in a correction, which I think we mentioned before from the Zizian episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

Uh huh.

[Josh Clark]

So in it I talked about Eliezer Yudkowski, who is kind of like his Machine Intelligence Research Institute was kind of at the center of the Zizians. Like that's where they all met.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And the Machine Intelligence Research Institute is trying to figure out how to create an artificial intelligence that is friendly to humans, that's aligned with human goals and doesn't wipe us out. And I said that Eliezer had basically thrown in the towel and was like, this is not. It's too late. We're not going to make it. We got an email from Malo Borgin, who was the CEO of the of Miri, and he said, hey you, you got it a little wrong. Eliezer's book that's coming out is called if anyone builds it, Everyone Dies is not about throwing in the towel. It's saying like we're right there on the edge, but when there's still time, we can still, still figure out how to make an AI, a super intelligent AI that doesn't wipe out humanity. And here's how and let's get busy now. It's kind of like a call to arms to get humanity in action. So I definitely flubbed that one. And a huge thank you to Mallow for letting us know, but also letting us know really gently.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he's really nice about it. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So the book, if anyone builds it, Everyone Dies, it's by Eliezer Yudkowski, who is an amazing thinker and his collaborator Nate Soares, comes out September 16th. If you want to go buy it. Fantastic, Fantastic. And if you want to get in touch with us like Mallow or Lori, you can send us an email too. Send it off to Stuff podcastheartradio.com.

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[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Why are TSA rules so confusing?

[Chuck Bryant]

You got a hoodie on.

[Josh Clark]

Take it off.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

I'm Manny.

[Josh Clark]

I'm Noah. This is Devin.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

And we're best friends journalists with a new podcast called no Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming at I can't expect what to do now? If the rule was the same, go off on me, I deserve it, you.

[Josh Clark]

Know, lock him up.

[No Such Thing Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Listen to no Such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

No such thing.

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[Josh Clark]

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast. I know how overwhelming it can feel if flying makes you anxious. In session 418 of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, Dr. Angela Neal Barnett.

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And I discussed flight anxiety.

[Josh Clark]

What is not normal is to allow it to prevent you from doing the things that you want to do, the things that you were meant to do.

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[Josh Clark]

You get your podcast.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is an I Heart podcast.