A dolphin adopts a tiny orphaned whale and surprises experts

Although there are many studies, we still know very little about animals. When we least expect it, they find new ways to surprise us: some species we thought extinct suddenly appears, some animal performs some feat that seemed unthinkable, and much more. Today’s story talks about love and solidarity. The protagonist, a female dolphin, showed that animals are an inexhaustible source of affection, especially with their young.

Check out the story that awesome.club prepared for you about a dolphin that adopted an orphaned whale. We hope you are as thrilled as we are. And get ready for the bonus we bring at the end. If you love dolphins, you’ll fall in love even more.

The image is for illustrative purposes only.

The foster mother is a bottlenose dolphin, perhaps the best-known species of dolphin. The famous Flipper, for example, was of this species. There are another 29 species, and one of them doesn’t have a good reputation: the orca, which many think is a whale, but it’s not.

Bottlenose dolphins are mammals and live in groups of 12 members. They often appear second on the list of smartest animals, after humans. Females live up to 40 years and males rarely live longer than 30. They communicate with a complex language of sounds and body movements.

Typically, they breed every 2 to 3 years, gestation lasts between 11 and 12 months, and the nursing period can last up to a year and a half. The mother does not separate from the calf until he is 6 years old.

The image is for illustrative purposes only.

Within the group of whales it is customary to include not only the balaenidae, but all large cetaceans. This is why some species of dolphins are often considered whales, even though scientifically they are not. The orca is an example. In reality, she is a kind of dolphin, just like the “melon heads”. However, there are clear differences between the “bottle nose” and the “melon head”, and so far there are no records that they can be bred together, or that any kind of bond is possible.

The “melon head” lives in larger groups (from 100 to 1000). They have not been studied as much as bottle noses, because their behavior only allows them to be studied in cases of throwing. Therefore, it has not yet been confirmed that they are as intelligent as bottle noses.

The discovery was made in the waters of Rangiroa, an atoll in the Tuamotu archipelago, in French Polynesia, and was recorded by researcher Pamela Carzon and her team from the Groupe d’Étude des Mammifères Marins (GEMM) in Tiputa.

According to the researcher, “a female who, in addition to her own offspring, takes care of a baby of a different species, is something very surprising”. There are many stories of “bottle-nosed” females who, because they didn’t have offspring, kidnapped offspring of other species. However, in general they abandon them some time later.

In this specific case, the story is different, as the female has her biological offspring. The team was taking pictures of the two species when they noticed the 3 animals (the adult female dolphin and the 2 calves) swimming together. The “melon head” baby was suckling from the female. In addition, he interacted with the other dolphins and even behaved in a similar way.

According to experts, this particular adoption could be caused by the adult female’s inexperience with motherhood and the contact she had with divers, a sign that she is already used to other species.

Another explanation would be that the calf would have been abandoned by another female who had kidnapped it. These are just hypotheses, so the possibility that it is just an act of solidarity with a small and lonely animal cannot be ruled out. Animals are amazing and researchers think they are capable of, among other things, an act of love.

Do you know of any case of an animal of one species that has adopted a calf of another species? Have you ever witnessed something like this? And do you think animals are capable of feeling love like us? Share your opinion in the comments.