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Research Spotlight

Our staff and dolphins are currently working on a number of cognitive and behavioral research projects. Publication announcements and details of our findings will be featured in our bi-monthly newsletter for members, and here on our website.

Minding the Minds: A Primer on Cognitive Challenge for Marine Mammals in Human Care

Research Overview: The past several decades have witnessed significant improvement in the physical welfare of marine mammals in zoos and aquariums. Over that

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Anthropogenic Noise Impairs Cooperation in Bottlenose Dolphins

Research Overview: Man-made noise is a significant issue for many animals, including dolphins, and previous studies have demonstrated that increased noise can change

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Trainer Interaction Can Improve Welfare Outcomes of Toy Enrichment for Isolated Animals: A Case Study

Research Overview: Researchers at Dolphin Research Center (DRC) in Grassy Key, FL, conducted this study with a 2-year-old bottlenose dolphin named “Ranger”, who

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Total Energy Expenditure in Bottlenose Dolphins

Research Overview: Dolphin Research Center collaborated with researchers from Duke University and Dolphin Quest to study Total Energy Expenditure (TEE)  in bottlenose dolphins.

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Bottlenose Dolphins Use Vocal Signals to Solve a Cooperative Task

Research Overview: Bottlenose dolphins are well known for cooperating in the wild, but how do they coordinate that cooperation? To find out, researchers

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Do Dolphins Really Have a Rightward Lateralization for Action? The Importance of Behavior-Specific and Orientation Neutral-Coding

Research Overview: Humans and other animals do not act symmetrically, and our brains do not function symmetrically. In  humans, for example, most are

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How Long Do Dolphins Live?

Research Overview: One of the questions that people often ask is, “How long do dolphins in marine mammal facilities live?” To answer that

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Bottlenose Dolphins Can Understand Their Partner’s Role in a Cooperative Task

Research Overview: Cooperation can be found across the animal kingdom, but do cooperating animals actively coordinate their behavior, or are they simply acting

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Auditory Evoked Potentials and Behavioral Considerations With Hearing Loss in Small Cetaceans

Research Overview: The primary sense in dolphins is hearing and a large portion of the dolphin brain is devoted to the auditory processing

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Further Insights Into Postpartum Signature Whistle Use

Research Overview: Individual vocal signatures help mothers recognize and provide care to their young in many animals. Mother-offspring recognition is particularly important when young

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Maternal Signature Whistle Use Aids Mother-Calf Reunions

Research Overview: Female dolphins and their calves use their highly individualized signature whistles to identify and maintain contact with one another. It was

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Field Research

Research Overview: Wild dolphins have been studied on both sides of us — in Key West and in the Upper Keys.  No one,

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Cetacean Cognitive Specializations

Research Overview: All of DRC’s cognitive research relates to our overarching goal of mapping the dolphin mind – understanding how dolphins think and

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Blindfolded Imitation

Research Overview: We’ve all heard the expression “monkey see,  monkey do” –  but actually, that’s a myth. Imitation is very rare in the

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Ovarian Follicular Dynamics During The Luteinizing Hormone Surge

Research Overview: Artificial insemination (AI) is increasingly utilized to maintain genetic diversity in bottlenose dolphin populations in human care, maximizing the gene pool

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Object Permanence

Research Overview: The ability to reason about objects that have disappeared from view, which is known as object permanence, has been studied in

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Fetal Echocardiographic Evaluation Of The Bottlenose Dolphin

Research Overview: During human pregnancies, a variety of clinical tests and procedures are conducted to provide information about the developing baby.  One such

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Numbers Concepts

Research Overview: The ability to understand number and counting is often thought to be specific to humans. Over the last few decades, studies

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Calf Social Development

Research Overview: Mother-calf social interactions are very difficult to observe in the wild, so valuable information can be learned from every calf born

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Monitoring Health And Well-Being

Research Overview: Staff at DRC collect data under a variety of circumstances to monitor the general health and well being of our family

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Metacognition In Dolphins

Research Overview: A fundamental characteristic of higher levels of consciousness is the awareness of one’s own thoughts and feelings. Do dolphins have this

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Learning With Dolphins Vs. Learning Without Dolphins

Research Overview: Would the presence of dolphins act as reinforcement to help increase learning for children with mental disabilities?  Dr. David Nathanson came

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Dolphin Detection Of Oil Films

Research Overview: The objective of this study was to determine if bottlenose dolphins could detect an oil slick on the surface of the

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Dolphin Research Center was founded as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation in 1984 by Jayne Shannon-Rodriguez and Armando "Mandy" Rodriguez for marine mammal education and research facility

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