--- title: Animal minds: dolphins' names, orca grandmothers and whale songs — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Animal minds: dolphins' names, orca grandmothers and whale songs», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Dolphins and whales are mammals that went back to the sea about 50 million years ago, and they took big, --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Animal minds: dolphins' names, orca gr… # Animal minds: dolphins' names, orca grandmothers and whale songs Lesson 235 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/0/) — Dolphins and whales are mammals that went back to the sea about 50 million years ago, and they took big, social brains with them. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/1/) — A bottlenose dolphin has its own whistle that works like a name, and its friends call it by copying that whistle. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/2/) — Orca families are led by old grandmothers who remember where to find salmon in hard years, and humpback whales share songs that change like pop hits. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/3/) — Watch a family at the beach: the kids learn tricks from older kids and grandma knows where the best rock pools are; dolphin and orca groups work in much the same way. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/4/) — Each bottlenose dolphin has its own signature whistle, invented as a calf, which others copy to call it, and dolphins remember old friends' whistles for over 20 years. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/5/) — Dolphins hunt as a team, herding fish into a tight bait ball and taking turns to dive through it; some in Florida slap mud rings so fish jump into their mouths. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/6/) — In Shark Bay, Australia, some dolphins wear sea sponges on their snouts to protect them while they poke in the sand, and mothers pass the trick to their young; a habit learned from others is called culture. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/7/) — Orcas in Antarctica swim side by side to make a wave that washes a seal off an ice floe, and older orcas teach younger ones. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/8/) — Different orca groups eat different food and use different call «dialects», and they do not mix. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/9/) — Orca groups are led by old grandmothers who can live 80 or even 90 years and remember where salmon are in bad years. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/10/) — Male humpbacks sing long songs that can last 20 minutes and be repeated for hours, and the song slowly changes over the years and spreads across oceans. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/11/) — There are real reports of dolphins staying near swimmers in danger, but dolphins are wild animals with big teeth and can be rough. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/12/) — Dolphins rest one half of their brain at a time, keeping the other half awake to breathe and watch out, because a dolphin must choose to come up and breathe or it would drown, with the eye on the awake side open. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/13/) — Dolphins blow rings of air underwater and play with them, pushing and splitting them, and humpbacks blow spiral bubble nets to trap fish. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/14/) — In tests in Hawaii, dolphins understood that word order in hand-signal sentences changes the meaning. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/15/) — Many people think tanks are too small for such far-swimming animals, and some countries have banned dolphin shows. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/235-animal-minds-dolphins-names-orca-grandmothers-and-whale-songs/16/) — The closest living land relatives of whales are hippos, and a whale's flipper has the same bones as your arm and hand. - ← previous: [Animal minds: the octopus, escape artist and puzzle solver](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/234-animal-minds-the-octopus-escape-artist-and-puzzle-solver/) - next →: [Animal minds: elephants' memory, feelings and the mouse myth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/236-animal-minds-elephants-memory-feelings-and-the-mouse-myth/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)