The young whale has been well integrated into his adoptive community, and adopts behavior consistent with those of his adopted group: he surfs and jumps with the bottlenose dolphins.
CARLY CASSELLA: ‘For the first time ever, scientists have witnessed a mother dolphin caring for the orphan of another species as though it were hers. For more than three years, researchers in French Polynesia have tracked this unusual bottlenose dolphin as she raises a melon-headed whale calf along with what appears to be her own biological newborn…
The researchers clearly observed the whale calf nursing from its foster mother and swimming in a typical infant position beneath her. What’s more, on multiple occasions, the intruder calf was filmed pushing its dolphin sibling away from its own mother’s belly…
The unique case is unprecedented in dolphins as far as we are aware, and it’s only the second example of cross-genus adoption ever documented in wild animals. The other case was reported back in 2006, when primatologists spotted two capuchin monkey mothers raising a baby marmoset.
Two parents, however, make such an adoption much more manageable. Bottlenose dolphins give birth to one calf at a time and care for that baby for up to six years. So adopting another calf on top of that is a massive constraint on both the mother and her real biological offspring…
“A female who, in addition to her own calf, takes care of a heterospecific [from a different species] baby, is something very surprising,” says lead researcher Pamela Carzon, who works at the Groupe d’Étude des Mammifères Marins (GEMM) in Tiputa, French Polynesia…
“It seems the young melon-headed whale has been well integrated into his adoptive community, and adopts behaviour consistent with those of his adopted group: he surfs and jumps with the bottlenose dolphins, he socialises with young bottlenose males and females, and seems to communicate with other members of the community,” says Carzon. “If he comes to the age of weaning, it’s very likely that he’ll live a bottlenose dolphin life”.’ SOURCE…
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