{"id":351072,"date":"2025-12-16T05:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351072\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T05:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:36:10","slug":"the-surprising-discovery-about-dolphin-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351072\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018surprising\u2019 discovery about dolphin friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As in humans, dolphins show signs of ageing such as reduced energy, wear to the skin, slower movement and fading sight. The scientists measured the animals\u2019 epigenetic ages by analysing skin samples, which were collected with small, floating darts that did not harm the animals, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Dolphin friends support each other in hunting and facing predators, team up to find mates, surf waves and play together, and even rest side by side.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Quality over quantity: Scientists found dolphins with a few close friendships were better off than those in a large group.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/d8ddd2101c4e05f64d062dcb9a719902aa06fb09.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Quality over quantity: Scientists found dolphins with a few close friendships were better off than those in a large group.Credit: Simon Allen<\/p>\n<p>Among the dolphins, the loners aged more quickly than those with strong social bonds, which the researchers believe is because of higher stress from facing threats or competing for mates solo.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the scientists found a few close friendships was better than being part of a crowd.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat was so surprising is that a lot of the dolphins in the larger groups actually age faster, and that probably has to do with [the fact that] in larger groups, you encounter more diseases, you encounter more competition, and those are all stressors that then mean that you accelerate ageing,\u201d Gerber said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Social interactions between bottlenose dolphins at Monkey Mia in Western Australia.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/b08d7adb279f9d29778c9f89041a637c7f776225.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Social interactions between bottlenose dolphins at Monkey Mia in Western Australia.Credit: Simon Allen<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t even matter how many friends you have, it\u2019s really the quality of that social bond that affects ageing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study did not distinguish between family and friends, but Gerber said previous research found most of the friends in a dolphin\u2019s social network were not related.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The bottlenose dolphins at Shark Bay have been studied for over 40 years.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/9f5a8482975a2b0ce88f5782e88e3fe9753840f8.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The bottlenose dolphins at Shark Bay have been studied for over 40 years.Credit: Simon Allen<\/p>\n<p>The study focused on male dolphins, Gerber said, because there was a clear record of their friendships, with the animals forming close bonds with peers at age four and then sustaining the same relationships for decades.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>Female dolphin friendships were also important, Gerber said, but tended to be more fluid, such as bonding with other mothers while their offspring were young.<\/p>\n<p>Get to the heart of what\u2019s happening with climate change and the environment.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p592px\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Sign up for our fortnightly Environment newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As in humans, dolphins show signs of ageing such as reduced energy, wear to the skin, slower movement&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-351072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}