Let me introduce myself

Hello, I'm a dolphin. I live in the sea. I can go forward, backwards, up and down. My world is roofed by a wavy barrier called the surface. I can leap out of the surface for a few moments and make beautiful splashing sounds as I crash back into the sea. This is fun. But if I stay out of the sea too long, I die.

You might find it hard to keep up with me. Most humans do. Even ones with boats. I usually swim along at about 10 km/h, and when I want to I can burst up to 40 km/h or more [Rohr1998]. The speed at which I travel makes it hard for you to find me in the open water, even with a satellite tracking device clipped to my fin.

Like you, I eat fish. I hunt them using sonar. I use a massive sonar system with four independent sound generators. I can tell the difference between a dead fish and a live fish using sonar [Howlett1997]. I can stun and even kill fish with a blast of sound [Marten2001]. There's no fooling me. My sonar is way better than anything you have.

My sonar eyes help me when I dive so deep that there's no light -- 200 m beneath the sea [Williams2000]. I can swim down and back up in a matter of minutes. Sometimes there's more fish to eat down there.

I have my own name, which you humans call a signature whistle [Sayigh1990]. I can hear the other dolphins using my amazing ears which can detects sounds from 1 kHz up to 120 kHz. You only can hear up to 17 kHz. When I'm separated from the pack, I call out my signature whistle to identify myself to other dolphins.

I have no hands. There no chance I'll ever wield a tool. Since fire can't burn underwater, I'll probably never invent the internal combustion engine, carry a spear with a metal tip, or shoot anyone. I'll never write anything down either.

Among my many feats, I can recognize myself in the mirror [SciAm2001]. I also play games on touch-screen computers [Wired2001].

Long childhoods are a sign of intelligence in animals. I stayed with my mother until I was about five years old, and matured when I was about ten. I live in the wild where I'll likely live to be at least 25 years old, and maybe as old as 40 or 50 if I'm lucky [Wells1990].

I can communicate with other dolphins using chirps, whistles, and clicks. But no human knows yet what I'm talking about or how much I say.

Maybe I talk about my fast-swimming, high-jumping, deep-diving, fish-eating, high-chirping, sonic-blasting, socializing life under the water.