Dolphins don’t believe in Open Source:
Observing wild dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, researchers from Georgetown University used hunting tools as a marker of dolphin societal habits.
Noticing some dolphins in the area used a sponge to protect their beaks while hunting, they attempted to discover why the practice had not spread.
They found the useful tool had first been used by a single dolphin nicknamed “Sponging Eve”, after she scrape her nose while foraging for food in rough sand.
To solve the problem, she broke off a piece of sea sponge to protect her, going on to teach the behaviour to her offsping.
But two decades later, knowledge of the tool had not spread among the whole dolphin population in the area.
Scientists observed 36 spongers and 69 non-spongers in the area over a 22 year period, taking careful note of their relationships.
They found: “Spongers were more cliquish, had more sponger associates and stronger bonds with each other than with non-spongers.
“Like humans who preferentially associate with others who share their subculture, tool-using dolphins prefer others like themselves, strongly suggesting that sponge tool-use is a cultural behaviour.”
This tendency to associate with those most like themselves is, scientists believe, a “critical role in human (sub)cultures”, and “may be true for dolphin society as well”.
(Hat tip to the perfidious Buckethead.)