The Dolphin Alliance Project is dedicated to the study of the most complex political system outside of humans, the amazing multi-level male alliances in Shark Bay, Western Australia.
We are using the newest technology to learn about social intelligence and culture in wild dolphins!
Dolphin alliances
Dolphins have the biggest brains after humans, taking body size into account. Many think that big brains are important for negotiating complex social relationships, and the most complex kind of relationships are alliances, where individuals join forces to cooperate against others. Over 40 years of research have revealed that male dolphins in Shark Bay have the most complex non-human alliances on the planet. The Shark Bay dolphins participate in a remarkable THREE levels of alliances with cooperation and conflict at every level. A landmark 2022 publication in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences established the Shark Bay dolphin society as having the largest non-human alliance network in the world and the only non-human society where stable social groups of unrelated individuals join forces to cooperate against other groups.
PLUS
Dolphin culture
While we were learning about complex male alliances, we were also learning that Shark Bay dolphins differ in where and how they hunt for prey, in places and using techniques that they learn from their mothers and others, some involving tool use! These dolphin foraging cultures may also be a manifestation of dolphin intelligence.
Our recent discoveries of alliance differences in where and how they hunt for prey opens the door to study cultural behavior in the most complex non-human alliances known! We will examine dolphin alliances for culture in how they feed, communicate and socialize. Find out how you can help.
EQUALS
Dolphin Intelligence in the Wild
It takes a lot of brain-power for dolphins to successfully navigate social relationships in their three alliance levels! Now with drones and hydrophone arrays we can see dolphins interact underwater and tell who is talking! These breakthroughs in our ability to watch and listen to the dolphins are allowing us to learn the social strategies that individual males use to build and maintain these critical friendships as well as whether are alliance specific social cultures! You can help fund this ground-breaking research!
All photography provided by Dolphin Alliance Project
Watch Dr. Richard Connor’s invited Plenary Presentation on 40 years of dolphin research in Shark Bay at the 25th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals!
About
Find out about our organization, mission, methods, and results from over thirty years of research.
