DOLPHIN ALLIANCES
Natural Tag & The Prima Donnas
In the 1980s, when Natural Tag (Nat) was 3-4 years old and weaned from his mother’s care, he spent most of his time with other juveniles, developing social skills and making friends with other male dolphins in Shark Bay. Learning to recognize others by their ‘names’ (= individually distinctive whistles), Nat spent countless hours with other dolphins hunting for fish, petting and rubbing, practicing synchronous maneuvers and other adult behaviors, and settling disputes with arguments or fights. Over time, Nat strengthened his friendships with some males and spent less time with others. Then in 1990s, in his mid-teens, Nat and six other buddies formed a ‘second-order’ alliance; a team of seven that would last the rest of their lives. The friendships that bonded the ‘Prima Donnas’ together were based on cooperation to improve their access to estrus females. Nat would work with Wabbit and the group’s namesake, Prima, as a stable ‘first-order’ alliance to herd single estrus females for days to weeks. Members Ridges, Fred and Big formed the other trio in the group and poor Barney, Fred’s best friend when they were juveniles, rarely got to consort females. But Barney helped the group defend their females against other alliances.
We identify individual dolphins by the shape of their dorsal fin and nicks and scars on the trailing edge of the fin. In the 1980s Natural Tag had an extremely subtle fin with a tiny ‘ding’ out of the trailing edge; decades later in 2018 his fin had not changed very much. Some dolphins fins undergo much more drastic changes!
In their teens the Prima Donnas were a scrappy bunch, even daring to challenge (not successfully!) the formidable Wow Crowd, a 14-member juggernaut that lived in the same area. Perhaps to improve their odds against such large groups, by the mid 2000s the Prima Donnas formed a friendship, a ‘third-order’ alliance with another group of 14, the Kroker Spaniels. In the mid-2010s Barney died, but the death of Prima was devastating to Nat and Wabbit, who rarely herded females for the next few years. The deaths of Wabbit and Fred in recent years actually improved Nat’s fortunes, as he began herding females again with Ridges and Big. The last three Prima Donna’s have maintained their friendship with the similarly diminished Krocker Spaniels and both alliances developed a new third-order friendship with a trio of Rascals, a younger alliance who now seem to be forming a friendship with the recently formed Shoreburds.
A trio of Kroker Spaniets, who are third-order allies of the Prima Donnas (Photo by Stephanie King)
Humans and dolphins have the biggest brains and most complex alliances
Over the past 40 years of our Shark Bay Dolphin Research, the Prima Donnas have played a key role in our understanding of male alliance relationships. We have watched dozens of second-order alliances like the Prima Donnas, ranging in size from 4 males to the 14-member Wow Crowd and Kroker Spaniels. Most males are not related to their second-order allies. The home range of each alliance overlaps with that of many others; one or two other groups might be third-order alliance friends but most are foes. Those third-order alliance friends may offer important protection from rival groups trying to steal females, as males with stronger third-order alliance bonds consort females for longer periods. A male may have some third-order bonds that are stronger than he has with some of his second-order allies but he responds strongly to the whistles of all of his second-order allies as part of his team. While some groups, like the Prima Donnas, form stable first-order alliances, in other groups things are a lot more variable with some males changing partners often between consortships. In all groups first-order alliance stability and the strength of social bonds in the group is related to the rate males are found in consortships. Habitat also plays a role in male behavior; some males in the southern part of our study area prefer to herd females in pairs whereas almost all open water males form trios. Finally, the ‘rule’ the males form second-order allies for life is sometimes violated; in a few cases, a male may be evicted or decide to seek greener pastures elsewhere or even join another group if all his mates have died.
If all this sounds complex that is because it is; only humans and dolphins, who share the largest brains among mammals, have multi-level alliances within a social network including alliances between stable social groups. We hope you find it as astonishing as we do that the largest brains and most complex societies evolved in mammals whose appearance and habitat are so different!
The incredible Shark Bay male alliance network! Each dot is an individual and Second-order alliances members have the same color, linked to their third-order allies by similar colors (the Prima Donnas are dark blue, and one of their third-order allies, the Kroker Spaniels, are light blue).