Ologies with Alie Ward - Delphinology Part 2 (DOLPHINS) with Justin Gregg

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

Wow. It gets weirder. Military dolphins, dolphins on drugs, sensory deprivation, deciphering dolphin language, the search for alien life, and more with the affable and knowledgeable Delphinologist Dr. Justin Gregg. Should you cuddle a dolphin? Can one kill you? Should you hire dolphins as midwives? Why do they follow boats? And what’s Drake got to do with it? Start with Delphinology Part 1 here, or wherever you get podcasts. Visit Dr. Justin Gregg’s website and follow him on Instagram, Twitter and TikTokBuy Dr. Gregg’s books: If Nietzsche Were A Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity, Are Dolphins Really Smart?: The Mammal Behind the Myth, and 22 Fantastical Facts About DolphinsHe also has a Substack newsletterA donation went to Dolphin Communication ProjectMore episode sources and linksOther episodes you may enjoy: Delphinology (DOLPHINS) Part 1,  Functional Morphology (ANATOMY), Phonology (LINGUISTICS), Ichthyology (FISHES), Primatology (APES & MONKEYS), Corvid Thanatology (CROW FUNERALS), Biological Anthropology (SEXY APES), Gorillaology (GORILLAS), Selachimorphology (SHARKS), Screamology (LOUD VOCALIZATIONS), Laryngology (VOICEBOXES), Speech Pathology (TALKING DOGS... AND PEOPLE)Sponsors of OlogiesTranscripts and bleeped episodesSmologies (short, classroom-safe) episodesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, masks, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramEditing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media and Mark David ChristensonTranscripts by Emily White of The WordaryWebsite by Kelly R. DwyerTheme song by Nick Thorburn

Oh, hey, it's still the extra power bank. You always forget to charge and bring in with you, which I did this week on a trip. Alleyward, and this is part two of Dolphins. Two things, number one, start with part one, to get all the basics and all the science scandals. There's some evolutionary mind blowers. There's blowhole sex.

Start with part one, do not cheat yourself. Then come back to this part because it gets weirder. It gets weirder. Part two is weirder, welcome. If you don't already love thisologist, you will, we all do. Again, they got their PhD in Dolphin Cognition and Communication, and they've authored two books on dolphins. Plus a new one, if Nietzsche were a narwhal,

what animal intelligence reveals about human stupidity? Those books are linked in the show notes. Also linked in the show notes are Patreon, where you can join for as low as a dollar a month. You can submit questions before the interviews. That's patreon.com slash oligies. We also have merch at oligiesmerch.com. Get yourself a swimsuit if you need one.

Thank you to everyone also who rates and subscribes and makes us number one on the science charts. Also, you just want us another webby this week. So thank you. And if you've ever left a review, I've read it with my eyes and to prove it, I read a fresh one such as from someone named annoyed vocalist who said, this show is something special.

Allie Ward is the sassy late night version of Mrs. Frizzle and oligies is the party bus on which you will wake up hungover from an intellectual bender. Thank you for that, I'll board. So let's get it started. Shall we? Okay, we're gonna get back to Nova Scotia with our guest

who was in Nova Scotia as we recorded this to chat about sensory deprivation, enlisted military dolphins. Should you ever pay money to cuddle a dolphin? Dolphins on drugs, all kinds of drugs, vengeful marine mammals, aquatic horniness, dolphin doublas and more with researcher, author and your new favorite land mammal

and legendary dolphinologist, Dr. Justin Gregg. Oh my God, I have so many questions, can I ask them? Yes, please, oh gosh. I bet there's an LSD question in there, I hope. Let me check, let me find and control, hold on. Somebody, because we're- Yep, four of them, four people asked about, let's get straight to it, Adam McBaddy,

Adam Lee Allen Spencer, Lizzie Baker, Adam McBaddy's words, what is your take on the 1961 study with dolphins on LSD to see if they'll form a more human language? First time question asked for Adam Lee Allen Spencer. I'd like to know more about the LSD experiments on dolphins. I think we all would, what do you know? Well, that was back to our old friend John Lilly.

At some point while the experiment was going on trying to teach Peter to speak English, he also was like, hey, what happens if you give a dolphin LSD? And so he just injected dolphins with LSD to see if he could stimulate something, I'm not sure, interspecies communication. And I believe he also, because he's the inventor

of the isolation tank that you go into and it's like dark and you're floating in water. So one might call it a sensory deprivation tank because the water is your exact body temperature. You can't even feel it. There's no sound, no light, just chill time with your racing thoughts or no thoughts, hopefully. But some folks do not like the sensory deprivation term.

So you can also call this cozy water coffin an isolation tank or a float tank or a float pod or a float cabin or a floatation tank or a sensory attenuation tank, whatever. It's none of my business. Now you can buy one for $32,000 or you can find a deal on some sessions. And once I read that they filter the water

between people, I was like, sign me up. This seems fun, but I've never done it. But anyway, there was a film in 1980 starring William Hurd that was based on John C. Lilly's research into these tanks and apparently renowned theoretical physicist Richard Feynman dug them, legend has it that floating in the dark helped John Lennon conquer heroin addiction.

And as a friend to Timothy Leary, John C. Lilly was known to just drop pharmaceutical grade acid in the float tank and just plumb the depths of his own mind. Now, if you'd like to hear more about this in his own words, you can check out John C. Lilly's published academic work titled Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer or his more conversational memoir

titled Tanks for the Memories, which you know he came up with in the tank on drugs and was like, brilliant, I did it. Yes. That's his shtick. And so he would take LSD, he'd inject dolphins with LSD, and then he would hope there'd be some sort of

communication or something. So that was a thing he did. And that was one of the things that like, people didn't like, like his collaborators. Like Carl Sagan was a friend of Lilly because Lilly, at the time NASA was interested in if aliens come down, how do we learn to speak with aliens?

And so they were like throwing money at him because they're like, if you can learn to speak with dolphins, then we can use that to speak with aliens. So like he was pals was like Drake. I'd be there though. Not you. Like from the Drake equation and like, yeah.

So they were all like, they were in this thing called the Order of the Dolphin, like Carl Sagan and Lilly. Anyway, yeah, it was a whole thing. It was a whole thing. And it was a secret meeting in 1961. It was also attended by a guy named Frank Drake, who during that conference wrote the Drake equation,

which is an argument of probabilities that estimates the number of possible active intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way. He wrote it during that conference. Also during this meeting, they got word that one attendee, the biochemist Melvin Calvin, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

for his work in photosynthesis. You've probably memorized the Calvin cycle. That was him. So they found out they drank a case of champagne. They talked turkey about Martians. They listened to John C. Lilly describe giant dolphin brains and they called themselves the Order of the Dolphin.

And then they officially rebranded to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence or SETI. Yep. SETI started as the Order of the Dolphin. What a weekend. What a good reason to put up an out of office reply, you know? But when he started giving LSD to the dolphins, they were all like, wait a second here.

And so that sort of started his path into the sort of hippie counterculture. Did people stop being friends with him? Did he get like vintage canceled at some point? Yeah, that's exactly it. I think he got vintage canceled by mainstream science. His writing was very popular with people in like regular non-scientists.

But the more he wrote about dolphins being like aliens and whatnot, the more the scientific mainstream community didn't want to hear about it. And that actually messed up the field for a long time. So like if in the 70s, you're like, I want to study dolphins. People are like, oh, you're a weirdo hippie.

Like it wasn't cool to study dolphins for a long time because there was some damage from the PR essentially. Well, what happened to the dolphins on LSD? I think nothing. I think that he was disappointed that nothing seemed to be going on. Like no discernible difference. I could see concerns where

if they have to breathe consciously too, if you are tripping your dolphin balls off, I don't even know dolphins. I'm sure dolphins have balls. They're probably internal. Giant internal balls, yes. They're very large. Well, they mate with a lot of people.

So that means that they need a lot of sperms, right? Right. The sperm will wash out the sperm of the other previous males. It's a whole thing, yeah. So it's just firehosen, right? Exactly. That's why like, I think it's right whales

have the largest like tentacles on the planet. And they're just like a third of the body weight of the animal, some insane number. And it's just literally fire hoses out all of the sperm from previous mating attempts, that's what it's for. It's just a lot to take in. So weird. Oh, luckily there's a lot of water wash things off,

I guess, but okay, so LSD didn't find out much. No, it seemed not to do anything, but you're right. I mean, what if it did? They were tripping and they went under water and they thought they were at the surface and they opened their blowhole and died. Right. Well, on that note, so many people,

Deli Dames, Lydia Armstrong, Rachel Davis, Melissa Hart wanted to know, in Rachel Davis's words, I would love to hear a deep dive. I don't think there was a pun intended on how they communicate is the idea that they have telepathy, flimflam, so telepathy. Can they communicate? Do they have ESP?

Melissa Hart read Madeleine Lengel's young adult novel, A Ring of Endless Light, where the angsty teenage protagonist communicates telepathically with dolphins. Melissa Hart said, that's false, right? Do they have ESP? No, but it's just like regular ESP, like I mean, there's no evidence for this. And anyway, whatsoever, there are weird ways

that they communicate, but it's not psychic. And again, that goes right back to these 60s experiments when they were trying to establish psychic connections to dolphins. So no, flimflam. Good to know. A bunch of people who I will say via my own mammalian mouth sounds, Madison Campbell, Brandy Lyne,

Nathan Andrew Lee Flight, Mallory Nettleton, Laura M. Smith, Nita Chen, Beth Souter, Becky the Sassy Seacrest Scientist, Lisa Baker, Slayer, Deli Dames, Lydia Armstrong, Rachel Davis, Melissa Hart, Danny Bauer, Megan Daw, Catherine Spencer, James Parks, Louie, Via Elizabeth Edwards, Sidoni S., Jess Feltner, Charlie and Beck who asked,

is anyone working on translating their language? I would like to speak with them. So, y'all, all of you. Want to know, in Stacey Wicks' first-hand question, ask her those words, how close are we to being able to translate dolphin speak as seen on SeaQuest? I'm not sure if you've seen SeaQuest.

Oh yes. Can, yeah. Darwin. Darwin, I love. Can that happen? It is a goal for some researchers and it has been a long goal for many researchers. The idea being like, yes, dolphin communication is actually pretty complicated.

They make a lot of different sounds. The question is, do they function like words? Are they talking about complicated topics? And so they've been attempts over and over again to translate that using, you know, mechanically or using information theory or using the AI stuff that's now happening. And I think people like me are quite skeptical

because I just don't think there's anything to translate. Other people are more hopeful that there is stuff in there. And I was just reading How to Speak Whale, Tom Mustle's book. It's really interesting. And it's got a, he's very hopeful. It's a great book. But he's very hopeful that you'll,

this new AI specifically, there's a new research group out there studying sperm whales, I think. And they're putting all these tags on them and listening to them. And they think if you throw enough data into an AI, it will be able to yank out language-like stuff. I personally do not think that that's the case

because I don't think sperm whales or dolphins need language to still be very smart, complicated animals. I just think we really want them to have language. We just, we're not giving it up. We just, I get it, I get it, I get it. And I'd love to be proven wrong. I just don't think it's gonna happen. Also, if you're wondering how dolphins generate those clicks

and those whistles, turns out they have some nasal air sacs and they've got a couple of sets of lips just inside their blowhole. One pair being monkey lips or phonic lips. I didn't name them, someone in the 1800s did. And the phonic lips are derived from the artists formerly known as nostrils. And those clicks being straight through

that fatty melon organ, that majestic forehead, which yes, looks like a giant brain, but it's just a thing called a melon. Their giant brains are behind it. But Delphanological sources report that these marine mammals can make up to four sounds at the same time. Do they even have ears to appreciate that?

Yeah, they do, teeny tiny ones. And one of my greatest professional sorrows, I'm gonna tell you right now, is that in 2018, I recorded a whole episode on whale earwax for you. And I'm not allowed to release it because of an NDA. It hurts me. But anyway, with up to a trillion possible noises and word type of sounds dolphins can make,

we can't use our own big dry ears or computers to fully understand them yet. So patrons, Megan Dott and Jacqueline Church wanted to know, could dolphins make sentences like dogs on those large word pads? What about using assisted communication devices or using some sort of press a button with a flipper and say, give me that fish and not that one?

Yes, and that's what I think is most exciting about dolphins. When they started doing those experiments, so this is after Lily's stuff all dried up. And then you had Lou Herman at a Koala Basin in Hawaii doing these amazing experiments with these dolphins where they gave them artificial symbol systems. So they would use whistles or hand gestures

to represent words and concepts. And they tested the dolphins ability to comprehend those. And they were geniuses like up on, you know, on par with like great apes. Like they could follow like sentences with five or six words in them, giving them really complicated instructions that would change the instructions based on the word order, like syntax, and they could understand that,

which is really mind blowing. And one of the reasons I wanted to study them, I'm like, well, that's very language like. So how much do they understand like how sophisticated is their cognition when it comes to language? What were they communicating during those experiments? Well, those are only one way. So it was humans telling dolphins to do stuff.

Those were the best experiments with the clearest results. But as soon as you start getting them to like press buttons and stuff, there's always this one thing that seems to crop up, which is dolphins don't give a shit. They don't seem interested in communicating with people. Like they can, we know that they can learn this stuff. But when you put one of these giant keyboards, like I had a colleague with a giant keyboard underwater

meaning they just, they just not a knew it. Do you ever feel like Amy Adams from Arrival? That's how a lot of people study and communication would maybe frame themselves. I think like, well, maybe we'll crack the code. We'll be the ones to figure it out. And that's how I started my career. I'm like, you know, I'm going to be one of these people

that helps to crack the code. And then the more I studied, the more I realized like, oh, well, it doesn't seem like they have a code that needs cracking. There's no secret system. And also they don't really need it. Cause like they're so complicated in what they're doing without having to use language

as the underlying explanation for their behavior. My whole career now is like, look, animals are sophisticated in their own right. They do not have to be human-like to be interesting. Let's celebrate dolphins for what they are, which is not humans, not doing human language stuff. Brains tell you nothing about an animal's intelligence. Like it seems like it should.

Humans have big, relatively big brains, soda dolphins. But like once all the scientists like compile like, okay, well, a tool using species should be a larger brain species. Well, guess what ants, ants use tools or whatever. Like any example of an intelligent thing from a big brain, brain to animal, you can find in some small brain, smooth brain to animal.

And so there's no strangely no correlation between intelligence and brains. So as you are berating yourself for forgetting your cousin's boyfriend's name, despite meeting him at a barbecue two months ago, just remember, dolphins aren't necessarily smarter than you, but they can recognize their friends through whistles and the taste of their pee.

I'm sorry, what? According to the 2022 study titled, cross modal perception of identity by sound and taste in bottle nose dolphins, researchers messed around and found that playing a dolphin's friend or family member's signature whistle, hey, paired with a gustatory stimuli, meaning the taste of that friend's urine,

made the dolphin be like, hey, Richie, Richie, where are you dude? Much more than just the whistle or the pee alone. And if you're like, why did you make me learn if dolphins can recognize other individuals by the smell of their pee? Blame patron Laura M. Smith who asked, is it true they can recognize other individuals

by the smell of their pee? And remember, not smell, taste. Speaking of recognition, do dolphins know how cute they are? What about the mirror test? Yes, they're one of the few species that passes the mirror self-recognition test. So there's lots of versions of this test,

but the idea is if you put a mark on an animal somewhere that it doesn't know about and put them in front of a mirror, if they use the mirror to inspect the mark in any way, like if they twist and turn their head or if you're a chimpanzee, you touch the mark, then you know that they know the reflection is actually them. So they have a concept of self-awareness that at least involves mirrors.

And dolphins have passed this multiple occasions. There's a relatively recent study, even more elegantly done that proves like, yeah, they can totally pass that test. Ooh, okay, what about accents? Michaela A. Gabriel, Nathan Andrew Leigh Flight, Katherine Dakota-Hareman, Brooke Brennan, Evan Villavan-Cencio, Aaron Burbridge,

and Vincent Hill in Aaron's words, do different dolphin pods have different dialects? Do they have regional accents Vincent wants to know? In killer whales, in orca, absolutely. And that's one of the hallmarks of the species is that they live in these family group pods. And those family groups over the years will develop sounds that are specific to that family group.

So you can easily tell the difference between one family group versus another based on their clicks and whistle sounds. And that's sort of evolving over time. And so that's a great example of culture in an animal species. Bottle nose dolphins, not so much because they don't split along those same lines.

And so they're, you know, regionally, you might say, oh, this dolphin group might sound different to that, but it's nowhere near as clear as killer whales. That's, they absolutely have. And the official term is dialects. They have different dialects. I mean, some monkeys have this as well, right? Yeah, there are other species

that will have regional or family specific ways of speaking birds as well, ways of speaking. But you know what I mean? You can tell the different populations based on differences in shared signals. What about play? A bunch of people want to know. Looking at you patrons, Alison Arkush,

Ashley Oakley, Rosalind Hesby, Shannon Ryan, Angela Clark, Emma Garshigan, and... Alex Morales says, I recently heard that adolescent dolphins behave like teenagers, they go through phases of the cool new thing to do together. JR Ralef wants to know,

why do spinner dolphins spin? And so does Julia Volmer and Sophia A. So what are they doing when they're, in Abby's words, like jumping so high out of the water? Are they having fun? It seems like it. A lot of the times when a dolphin is jumping out of the water, it is for fun.

Spinner dolphins are a weird case. We actually think the spinning is a communicative signal sometimes. So it actually is more than just fun, although fun might be the reason too, but that might be used for long distance communication if one dolphin sees another one, often the distance spinning around, maybe.

But most of the time, if you see dolphins doing things that seem playful, guess what, it's totally playful. They're very playful animal species. They love games of keep away. They love, they'll grab our items and carry them around and just generally do stuff that we would associate with fun.

Indeed, you do find that younger dolphins are more playful, for sure. And they get reprimanded by their moms. If you get a young dolphin that's a juvenile that comes out and tries to play with a human, the mom will be angry. They're like, he's my friend though. They touched him with a flipper.

Do you know what moms will do to discipline a dolphin? This is interesting. So a young juvenile is over, it's doing something it shouldn't. The mom will take it and pin it to the sea floor and hold it down for a little bit, because that's scary if you're a dolphin and you need to breathe.

And so that's the way a mom will discipline. And they will do that to humans that are annoying them as well. And so there's only been one recorded incidence of a wild dolphin killing a human. And that was in Brazil with this lone sociable dolphin that used to come up to the beach and people would pet it or whatever, which is weird in its own right.

But there was some drunk dudes and they were trying to put out a cigarette or something in the dolphin's blowhole. And the dolphin got real angry and that's the only example of a dolphin killing people. But I mean, they were being terrible. Like what the heck? Yes, and that was documented and verified?

I believe so. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere on the internet. Therefore it's true. Justin was kidding. And he said, it's been documented, so I dug around. And let me take you back to December 1994. Friends was a brand new television situation comedy and Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas as You

had just dropped. Meanwhile, in Caraguata, Tuba, Brazil, a couple of drunk guys on a beach were trying to tie stuff to a dolphin's tail, but they fucked with the wrong dolphin. So Chio, named for the location of South Sebastio, was a male dolphin who popped up around March of that year, 1994.

He was friendly with female swimmers. Side note, scientists say female humans have similar hormones to lady dolphins. But as more and more people heard about him and they flocked to meet this affable lad, some of those people were dicks and had dicks. Folks would try to grab the bottlenose dolphins, pectoral fins for some kind of oceanic pony ride

and even try to pour beer down his throat. And maybe Chio was like, no, I would literally rather taste my mom's urine. And as a result, between March and November 1994, Chio has put 28 people in the hospital. And by December, he'd fucking had it. And when these two guys on the beach started messing with his tail fluke,

Chio rammed them both repeatedly in the chest with his rostrum, inflicting fatal internal injuries on a guy named Yao Paulo Moreia and breaking the rib of survivor, Wilson Pedrozo, who I just about well over an hour looking up on Facebook and Instagram to be like, does his bio say dolphin attacks survivor? Like be nice to dolphins.

And all I found was a government official in Sao Paulo with the same name and appropriate age. Like he could have been drunk on a beach back when metallic pants were cool. But alas, if it's him, he's put his dolphin harassing past behind him. But as for Chio, I know you're like, what happened to the dolphin, right?

He was never charged with any crime. And he came back to the bay a few times, but then either took off with a traveling pod and probably talked shit about humans forever, understandably, or one of our species may have hunted him down secretly. Nobody knows. So let this be a lesson.

Do not taunt a dolphin. Plus it could cost you a lot of money. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 means that could cost you up to 100 Gs to haze a dolphin or get within 50 yards of them. So what is the oligies lesson about Marine Mammals? Kudos? Pretend they have a restraining order against you.

Yes, very good. Otherwise, they may actually make you the star of your own Creek tragedy. Well, good for them. I mean, dolphin vengeance, do it. It's vigilante, but I mean, Emma Garshigan and Cygni Ass and Kate Wunker wanna know what's with the boat obsession.

Kate wants to know, I've always wondered, why do dolphins chase boats? Yep, if you've been on a boat, you've probably seen a dolphin chasing after your boat. And that's because the dolphin will create a pressure wave at the bow of the boat, which is literally pushing the water along. So the dolphin can sit right in that pocket

and be pushed along without having to swim. So it's just fun. It's like surfing. And the back of the boat is the same thing. It's turning up all this water and it creates these waves and they'll stay in that slipstream and come out of it like they're surfing. So it's just fun.

Oh my God. Okay, what about Nidharian Knight wants to know, how large can pods get? I've seen videos of hundreds across the water column. Yeah, it's species specific, like spinner dolphins, common dolphins. Sometimes they come together in groups of thousands, but usually when they're traveling.

So if they all got some place to go for some reason, like they're headed out to the hunting grounds, they'll do that. Other species, not so much. You don't see, you know, bottom of those dolphins are not doing big group stuff. I love the idea of like a commuter train full of dolphins. That's totally what it is.

They're stampedes, they're called. I love it. It's so cool. Zoe Jane Page Price, Emma Gershigan want to know about assisted birth. Zoe Jane says, dolphin doulas, let's talk about the magical, intuitive world of dolphins supporting labor and birth. Is that true?

Are they like, push, push? I've had so many questions over the years from expectant moms who are asking me to help them find a dolphin to help them give birth. No. I don't know how this entered into the zeitgeist, but it's there. So the idea is if you go out into the ocean,

the dolphins will come up to you and they will help you with the birth. I don't know what that help would mean. I guess hang around you something. So people are like, how do I do that? And I'm like, okay, don't do that. Because like, if you are on the boat trying to give birth in the middle of the ocean,

like you're nowhere near like proper medical care, like there's no ambulance. So like, it can be dangerous. Also, you know what's in, when you're giving birth, a lot of stuff comes out of you. Some of it is blood or like placenta or whatnot. And do you know what likes blood and placenta to eat? Sharks.

Do you know what's in the ocean? Sharks, right? And so like, I wouldn't want to put like a newborn in a placenta. You're chumming the waters essentially. Like, that's not a good idea. But some people want to give birth like in a shallow pool for some reason

and hope a dolphin comes. Like, okay, I've heard that that's happened. That's probably fine. But I don't know why they think dolphins care about helping humans give birth. They do help each other. Sure, you know, like a mom will help push the newborn up and then the other dolphins will gather around.

That's fine, but we're not dolphins. I'm sure there's someone who's accepts Bitcoin to put you in a pool with dolphins while you're giving birth, right? You can find any service anywhere on the planet. This is what I know. So yes. Very accurate.

So while you could seek out an institute on the Big Island for this kind of delivery in an idyllic setting, let's consider that there's not a lot of solid evidence or even liquid evidence that this is good for you or even safe biologically. Also, from what I understand, the residents of Hawaii don't want anyone there. They're like, don't come here,

gooping up the beaches with your placenta and then flying back to Ohio, don't. Now, if you're wriggling waxy newborn gets eaten by a dolphin because you've had one of these births, you can actually blame a Russian gentleman named Igor Cherkovsky who started this trend by suggesting that his pregnant clients take a dip in the black sea

and make nice with the mammals there. And I was looking into it. I was like, who is this Igor guy? And looking into him further, I found a 1996 newspaper clipping with the headline controversial birth guru charged with sex assault. And that explains that the former gym teacher

who became a self-professed father of sea births wasn't Neptune in a lab coat, but he was just a good old fashioned predatory creep. So scratch dolphin birth off the bucket list, you're good. Spend the money on a float tank and a fistful of acid tabs, don't do that. But as long as we're back on drugs, a few folks had a question about stoned dolphins.

And I'm looking at you, great lady Dane who asked, do dolphins really enjoy drugs? You were not the only one who needed to know. People want to know Angela Clark, Olga, Marianne Thomas, Matt Thompson, R.M. and Steven Shelley want to know what are they doing with pufferfish? Marianne Thomas says, I heard they use pufferfish to get highs, is true?

Okay, so there was this, I think BBC show called Spy in the Pod. And it had this whole little segment where there's like dolphins playing with a pufferfish. And the pufferfish is all blown up and they're like dragging it around. And you look at the dolphin and its eyes are like half closed. It looks totally stoned.

And they're like, oh man, that dolphin is high on the toxin from the pufferfish. And then that just became like a thing that everyone knew on the internet. When attacked, pufferfish release a neurotoxin. In high doses, it can kill. But in small doses, it has a narcotic effect. It seems to be affecting the dolphins.

But the thing with that is, the dolphin in the thing didn't have like high, it didn't have squinty high eyeballs. If you shine a light on a dolphin, like it will squint its eyes. And this was a dolphin like in the sunlight. Okay, that's probably all that was. That's totally normal.

And like there's zero evidence that they can actually extract the poison from a pufferfish. No one's ever seen that. And even if they did extract it, there's zero evidence. I can't remember the name of the, it's like tetradioxone or something. Tetradoxin. Whatever that poison is,

we don't know if that has psychotropic properties for a dolphin, that's all just insane speculation. And so like, there's like eight steps of speculation based off of this one video. So I'd say, is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? No.

Good to know. Flimflam being busted. I looked so deep into this and I was so excited to unearth the 2014 paper, nature and narcotics. Dolphins use pufferfish toxin to achieve trance-like state. But then, following the citation trail, I realized that all roads led back to that one incident

from the 2013 BBC video called Spy in the Pod. So that is a sum total of the research and observations on this. Although I did find the 2016 paper called, preliminary report of object carrying behavior by provisioned wild Australian humpback dolphins in Tin Can Bay, Queensland, Australia, which noted that while observing the humpback dolphins,

quote, there was one instance where a live pufferfish was thrown at staff repeatedly, which, if nothing else, is evidence that transcending the sea and the land is the etiquette of puffer-puffer pass. Okay, this is something I should have asked you right up top. Emma Luck, who signed themselves sincerely a tired killer whale researcher.

Cool. Asstinal caps, not even an ask, a demand. Please explain to everyone that killer whales are both whales and dolphins and that all dolphins are just toothed whales. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Dolphins are whales. What, wait, no.

Killer whales are dolphins, help me out. Yeah, those words are all useless. I hate them all. I hate the word whale and dolphin. So we call killer whales whales. We also call them orcas. They're actually a dolphin species, right? And then you have pilot whales, guess what?

Also a dolphin, melon-headed whale, also a dolphin. And you can also use the word dolphin to apply to porpoises sometimes. And sometimes people use it to talk about the dolphin fish, which is a fish. A whale is generally a big animal. So a pilot whale is a large dolphin. A killer whale is a large dolphin.

Bailing whales are all pretty large. The Ziphids, you know, these other toothed whales, they're also large. The word dolphin usually refers to oceanic dolphins or river dolphins. There's no definition that it will always be true. It's just common names that we randomly give them, based mostly on size.

Well, as a person who studies dolphins, and now that we know that orcas are dolphins, is it bad to call them killer whales or I've read somewhere that it's like, how dare you call them a killer whale? Same with great white sharks, just call them a white shark, because it's villainizing animals

that are like, I'm just out here eating fish. And sometimes I'll kill some seals, leave me alone about it. What's the scientific community thoughts on that? Yeah, you will see that it'll change from year to year in the literature as to the sort of like this, the political and the social stuff will change the words that we use.

A lot of people will not use killer whale, because they don't want to confuse people into thinking they're a big, vicious, dangerous thing. So you'll see orca quite a bit in the literature, but I don't know what this year is all about. Maybe there's more orca than killer whale. It's just a personal preference. In the same way, people will talk about

dolphins being in captivity, and sometimes they'll say dolphins in human care, that you will use different language depending on what industry is involved in the publication. That's good to know. I guess speaking of killers, let's talk military uses. Alison Arcush, Jen Clinton, Kate Georgia, Hester Dingell want to know,

how are dolphins used for national defense? Or what other cool jobs do dolphins have? Are we like, hey, I dropped something. You know that video of a beluga whale that goes and gets a phone? Yes. Like I don't know if that's the same beluga that's just like in a fjord that got lost

that was having like wearing like a Russian bra. But who's out there working for who? Yeah, well, as soon as they figured out that dolphins were kind of smart and could echo, okay, they're like, okay, how do we weaponize this? Cause that's the way of the world, right? And so originally the US Navy and the Soviets were training dolphins and seals to do military stuff.

So that could be patrolling boats, you know, where they might signal if the enemy diver approaches or looking and tagging mines, that kind of thing. Yeah, they have a lot of uses when in construction and things like that. So the military has been training and using them, not in anti-personnel. The US Navy has said they've never trained a dolphin

to kill like an enemy diver. The Soviets on the other hand, quite famously did try and use their dolphins to kill and the enemy divers, they had like explosive darts or so that so we've been led to believe on the dolphin. So it could like poke a diver and like kill him with some poison or whatever.

So those are the dolphins that in Sevastopol, in Ukraine, Crimea now, part of Russia, they were there for a long time in the Black Sea being trained to do this stuff. And then they were retired for a while. And I think they were like, just like people would do swim with dolphin programs. And I think they've been re-enlisted.

So I believe that they've started up the program again. But that's just a very long history because they're trainable, smart, they can dive in a way that humans can't do. We can't replicate that with technology to the same extent. So yeah, we use them for military purposes, like everything else. Y'all, where do I start to fill you in on this?

I'm just gonna give you the broadest strokes I can. Okay, so the Navy has maintained Marine Mammal Training Centers off the California coast for over half a century. The US Navy Marine Mammal Program gets them out of the Gulf of Mexico and then takes them to San Diego, trains them to find underwater mines,

to nark on enemies swimming around, to pick up dropped objects. Oh, and also the dolphins guard nearly a quarter of the US nuclear warfare stockpiles. What? Sea lions are also on the payroll, which is probably pretty fishy in a lot of ways. But apparently sea lions have great underwater eyesight

and quote, high professionalism. And I'm willing to guess they're better at spreadsheets than I am. And I asked Google if Navy SEALs use Navy SEALs, but it was like, I don't know what you're saying. There's also many, many, many rumors that certain militaries have trained dolphins to hypodermically stab at underwater enemy divers

with a needle giving them a blast of CO2 in their veins, killing them instantly. Everyone keeps very mum about that because loose monkey lips sink Navy ships. But one animal activist named Rick O'Berry says that all Marine mammals should be freed from captivity and alleges that the military binds the rostrum

of dolphins shut when they're in the ocean. So they'll come back to base to feed, which does not sound cool, but why does this guy care so much about enlisted dolphins? Okay, remember in part one when I mentioned the flipper dolphin actress, who's a dolphin named Kathy, who died possibly by suicide after filming wrapped

and she was left without a lot of enrichment in captivity. Okay, well, Rick O'Berry was her trainer and Kathy died in his arms. In fact, he trained all five dolphins that played flipper. And it wasn't until Kathy's death that he came to the realization of the harm he may have done by promoting captive dolphin spectacles. So you may have also seen him

in the feature length documentary, The Cove. Well, now really quick, let's go to Norway. What about that beluga whale, Havladmir, who showed up with a Russian camera harness in a Norwegian harbor? Is he okay? Not great. So according to the nonprofit One Whale,

he sustained a lot of propeller injuries and they're trying to get him and other cetaceans a fjord of their own, so that Havladmir can finally be safe from the roving deli slicers of harbor traffic and live out his post-military retirement. Speaking of warfare, Savannah Glenn, Jen Skrull Alvarez, first-time question asker,

Kathy is tech and Elders Amora wanna know, in Kathy's words, do dolphins actually attack sharks? Absolutely. Really? Yep, they're constantly on the lookout for sharks and a lot of their behavior, like where they go at night and the mother's protecting the babies and staying in small groups, it's to protect from sharks.

A neonate dolphin is just like a bite-sized shark snack. Delicious. And so they are nervous. And if you look at a wild dolphin population, they are usually covered in shark scars. And if a dolphin suddenly doesn't show up one day, it's probably been eaten by a shark. So yes, they're nervous of them

and there are many examples of dolphins when being attacked, facing off against a shark. They usually, they will ram them really fast, hit the gills, that sort of thing, try and chase them away. But most of the time, if a shark is around, they just leave. Good to know. They're not out there necessarily hunting sharks,

but they can fight back if they need to. Yeah, that's it. On that note, Greg Wallach wants to know, are dolphins gay sharks? Cat Blacklarz wants to know, please talk about gay dolphins. I believe Greg is referencing a very famous line from Glee in which someone states,

did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks? Cat wants to know, let's talk about gay dolphins. Are dolphins gay, some of them? So it's an interesting question. There is in the animal kingdom in general, a awful lot of same-sex sexual behavior. It is pretty normal. Doesn't matter what species, insects, dolphins, dogs,

whatever, pretty standard stuff. Dolphins have a reputation for being extra gay. And that is because if you hang around with dolphins, you will notice pretty quickly, penises. Especially young male dolphins will whip them out all the time in a social context. And they're often together with other young male dolphins. And the penises are just out doing whatever.

Sometimes they'll poke around with it like the blow hole, but they don't go in or whatever. As into the anus, sometimes that will happen. This is standard stuff, mounting each other totally normal social behavior. And you can't think of it in the same way you think of a human penis being... If you see somebody out in public

with a penis running around doing stuff, that's weird and deviant. Normal for a dolphin. And that's because I always think of it this way. Dolphins don't have hands. They have these dumb pectoral fins, which just can slap. At best they can slap around and rub each other. A penis, however, is a little more mobile.

So it functions almost like a hand or a finger. So if you had to high-five your friend, a penis is a potential thing that you can use. And so they use them in social contexts, which doesn't always involve sex, which, you know, is it a gay behavior? I don't know, because they're just engaging in so much like same-sex behavior,

just like every other species, that yeah, they're sort of, every dolphin is bi, let's just say. That's wonderful. I'm happy for the dolphins, to be honest. Yes. And you mentioned tool use, and Curious Cat and Mushroom Morgan on that note

wanted to know, Curious Cat asked, do they really use eels as flesh lights? And Mushroom Morgan wants to know, is it true that dolphins bite the heads off of fish and then use them to perform self-cunnilingus? I think that there was an actual article where a dolphin was rubbing on like a dead fish that I read. That is a thing, yeah.

Oh my God, my Google search history. It's a real, real mess, people. Wow, okay. Yes, John Hopkins University Neuroscience Professor David Linden detailed an account of a captive male bottlenose dolphin wrapping a live eel around its dick, like a bacon-wrapped hot dog,

made of climaxing sea creatures. At least one of them was climaxing. And the eel was initially offered as food, but the dolphin was like, I got a better idea. And it had to take a detour to Dicktown, and I'm sure he ate it afterward, which is also gross, now that I'm saying that out loud.

Now, patron Allison Holloway wrote in, I read a book when I was a teen that dolphins use jet streams to masturbate. So maybe it's a similar situation, which then made me search for this book so that I could find its author and ask why, but it was fruitless. And it led me down a dark, unforgettable path

about a man who had an emotional and physical and intercorsical affair with a dolphin in where else but Florida in the 1970s. And he wrote about it in a memoir called Wet Goddess. Let's clear my cache and let's take a break to throw some money at people who deserve it, such as the Dolphin Communication Project, whose mission is to promote the scientific study

of dolphins and inspire their conservation. Justin is a senior researcher associated with them, and the Dolphin Communication Project will be linked in the show notes. So thanks, sponsors, for making that donation possible. Okay, where, I'm sorry, where were we? Okay, oh, still on dolphins, jerk in it. Which, okay, after some fact checking,

I remain changed again. I'm different than before. I'm worse off. I saw a gleeful male dolphin pushing a beheaded fish up against aquarium glass and making love to it. Flesh lights, not supposed to be made of actual flesh, let alone dead fish. None of us are here to judge, just to gag and to learn.

Look, dolphin penises, you can use them as a finger, but they're also innervated in it just like a human penis. Rubbing on it feels good. So, okay, they rub penises on stuff, that makes sense. Turns out that dolphin vaginas have like a giant clitoris right at the opening, right? This is relatively, for some reason,

gee, I can't imagine why. They didn't spend looking, you know, as much time looking at vaginas as they did penises. It took a female researcher to be like, oh yeah, that giant like double A battery size flesh tube, that's a clitoris, yo. So they're very sensitive, just like human. And so like, yeah, so females rub on stuff too,

because you know what, that's what sex parts are for in animals. Oh God, thank God someone said it. That is wonderful. And again, it makes me happy for the dolphins. I am rooting for dolphins more than I thought I would. I thought this was going to be similar to the Otter episode and I was going to look at dolphins

with a certain amount of distrust. But on that note, so many people, I will list them in an aside. Bear with me and imagine how excited you'd be to hear your name. But Rachel Gardner, R.M. Rachel Kendrick, Timothy Wang, Detikens poetry, Allie Vessels, Marissa Emmett-Wald,

Kendall Hargis, Delia Zileski, Kelly Broccanton, Kate Sometimes, Mary of the Grapefruit, Hannah Feldman, Deli Dames, Lauren Legg, Lenny Olseth, Brafka 34, Lindsey James, Amy Martin, Cinamonk, Marissa Alham, Derek Allen, Jocelyn Alcantara Garcia, Dan Allison-Beverie, Rachel M. and Mark Hewlett, need to know. In Ken Chambers' phrasing, are dolphins actually assholes

or is that just propaganda started by the sea lion mafia? Also, Simpsons Watchers, Dominique McDermott, Teagan, Dan, and Katie Holtman want to know in Natalie Snyder's first-time question-askers words, shares my thoughts and says, I feel very skeptical toward dolphins. Ever since I grew up with the Simpsons episode where they took over the world and had a constant smile,

it makes me not trust them. It begins, the dolphins are upon us. Are they actually evil? A bunch of people want to know, are they assholes? I think of this as like the Nickelback effect. Like you had dolphins that everyone loved in the 60s and 70s, right? Then the internet happened.

And as soon as a lot of people love a thing, you just have this group that pops up and just hates on them, like Nickelback. Why do we all hate Nickelback? I don't know, people just pile on. And so you try and find a couple examples of dolphins doing a mean thing. Like, ooh, their smile is creepy.

And then you just hate on them. And so I honestly think it's just weird. Like there's nothing that they're like otters, hate on otters. Like that, what they're doing is terrible. Dolphins don't do anything like that. And yet for some reason we hate them. Oh, this makes me so happy. And you know, on that note, Lindsey James, Kendall M,

a bunch of people want me on a list, Nathan Andrew Leifleit, Emmett Wald, and Katie Sharp asked the obvious philosophical and kind of guilty follow up. Are we anthropomorphizing them too much? On average, probably. That's generally the case for most animals. Like if you're a scientist and you wanna know

what's really going on, you don't do that. You know, you're trying not to anthropomorphize. But in everyday life, we can't help but do it, especially because even though they look like a big fish, dolphins act like a chimpanzee or a crow. They act completely different from what a fish does. They're more human-like. And so we therefore start attributing

all the human stuff we can to them. That's totally normal human way of doing things. So from a scientist perspective, yes, don't anthropomorphize them too much. It's usually bad for them. That's usually the way of things. But from an everyday human perspective, like I get it. I think it's so interesting

because I know that anthropomorphizing is bad to degree, but also on the other end of the spectrum is considering any animal to just be a thing, like a rock that can be treated willy-nilly. So I don't know. I don't have any answers. I have only questions here. But on that note,

Nita Chen, Winnie's a witch, and a bunch of folks. Looking at you friends, Heathall and Allie Paul, Bo Jarvis, Patricia Evans, Abby Grebe, Christy, Lisa, Larissa, Becca Fantassel, and A.Z.M. Wanna know, in Nita's words, what is the most ecologically friendly way to observe dolphins without disrupting their habitat? And is it ethical to swim with a dolphin

in a swim with dolphin package? Complicated questions, those. Yes, the problem is when you have like a dolphin watching industry, if it's not tightly regulated, you have a lot of boats hanging around a local group of dolphins, and that's generally bad for them.

They get hit by rotating blades, or they can't get their food. So generally, if there were no humans looking at dolphins, that'd be good. If you are just on a boat by yourself and dolphins come up to you, great, love it. That's awesome. You can even try getting in the water,

see what happens. It's not a problem. But if you're in one of these scenarios where there's like 30 boats and they're all going to see the dolphins, that you might want to be like, okay, I don't want to be involved in that. Swim with dolphin programs are all over the map

in terms of whether or not they're good or bad. Sometimes you have a facility that's not accredited, and that's just like some random guys, like I'm going to go get some dolphins and throw them in my pool and then get charged people. That's not great. Other facilities are quite nice, and they take care of their dolphins,

and they're very concerned. But that is a personal decision about how you feel about captivity, and the science will tell you, if you go looking, it's either the dolphins are suffering or the dolphins are fine. So cherry pick whatever you want, whatever you think, but definitely do some research and think about it.

So it's really a personal choice, but we have presented a bunch of info that might make you see a swimming with dolphins encounter in a new light. And according to the dolphin project, a number of aquariums and swim with dolphins programs around the world purchase live dolphins caught in bloody drive hunts like those seen in the Cove.

And remember the Marine Mammal Protection Act forbids folks from getting too close anyway. But as myself as a resident of Southern California, I have seen so many dolphin pods splashing and spinning off shore. And that was plenty close to make my heart just leap along with them from afar. Anytime you can see a dolphin, it's fine.

You don't have to actually smell the dolphin. Now, speaking of humanities encroachment, some of y'all wanted a status check on dolphins in general, such as Shannon O'Grady, Crystal Wilson, Matt Cicado, Char Harrison, Jessica Duran, Alexandra Bede, Yana Wisniewski, Frank Hendricks, Laura Rosenbaum, Logan Dudley, Kat Becklars, Kayla Pilcher, and Cheetan Jolly,

Pendiala, who asked, are they all dying? Do we need to save them? Any dolphins need saving? There are some species like those river dolphins I was mentioning, they're usually in trouble because they live next to people. So yes, they need some help. There's the Vakita, I think that's a porpoise species,

there's only like 10 of them left. That's crazy, like they're probably going extinct. The Baiji, which was a Chinese river dolphin, that is gone extinct. There aren't any other species of oceanic dolphins that are really in trouble. They're usually doing pretty okay, but usually the closer a species lives to land,

the more it's screwed. Let's say you were gonna dip into some dolphin fiction or nonfiction. Where do we start? Do we start with a cove? What's good dolphin material? Never vintage flipper, I'm sure. I never was a flipper fan.

I'm a nerd, right? So I like the SeaQuest dolphin, the Darwin ridiculous, or the Johnny Mnemonic. Remember when they had that crazy dolphin? Jones. It's a fish. It's a mammal. But like, I swear there are no good depictions

of dolphins on film in a fiction universe. Like, forget it, just don't bother. I don't know. There are lots of great documentaries about dolphins. So just start looking around for BBC stuff or whatever. The cove is just going to make you very sad. It's important to know about it, but like it's not light.

I don't have any recommendation. Read a nonfiction book. Like, read a science book about dolphins. There's lots of those. So for example, yours, how is the process of, I feel bad. I am. Oh no.

I am. Again, linked right in the show notes or available. Wherever you get books, are dolphins really smart? The mammal behind the myth and 22 fantastical facts about dolphins. Plus his brand new book, if Nietzsche were in our wall, what animal intelligence reveals about human stupidity? More of Dr. Justin Greg's wit and wisdom

for your amusement, linked in the show notes. I think you landed on the right career for yourself. I can't imagine dolphins having a better spokesperson. Thanks. I hope I'm helping them. You're like a great press secretary for dolphins. Just like fielding flim flam. Yeah, they pay me in fish and eels.

I'll take whatever they want to send my way. I'll take it. Little flipper tap here and there. Good job. Listen, I've still never been like affectionately, gently touched by a dolphin. That's all I need to make my life. So please, somebody just pectoral fin rub me.

Wherever. Little tiny pad on the back. Just a little tiny pad. Yeah. With a flipper though, not with a penis. I just want to be clear about that. Yeah. Boundaries.

Boundaries, that's right. So ask aquatic experts, awkward questions, because look at all that you just learned and follow Justin Greg on TikTok and Twitter and everywhere, the links are in the show notes. We love him. Also, he has chickens. So if you listen to the two-parter on chickens,

it's gonna be a real Venn diagram of interest here. And his books are obviously linked in the show notes. He's as wonderful a writer as he is a guest. And we are atologies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Allie Ward with one L on both. I'm at TikTok at Allie underscoreologies. I'm trying, y'all, I'm trying. Smologies are shorter, kid-friendly episodes

with no squares. They're available at the link in the show notes. Allieward.com slash Smologies. Thank you, Zeke Rodriguez-Thomas and Mercedes-Maitland for working on those. Allieges Merch is available at AlliegesMerch.com. Thank you, Susan Hale for managing that and so much more, literally like everything for Allieges.

Noel Dilworth does all this scheduling. Aaron Talbert admins the Allieges podcast Facebook group with assists from Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Fultes, who's having a birthday, happy birthday, Shannon. Emily White of the Wordery does professional transcripts. Kelly Artwire makes our website and can make yours too. Nick Thorburn made the theme music. Assistant editors are the wonderful

Mark David Christensen and Jared Sleeper. And our lead editor is recent COVID survivor, thankfully, Mercedes-Maitland of Maitland Audio. And if you stick around to the end of the episode, I'm gonna tell you a secret. And this week, the secret is weird, okay? So I got stranded in Texas. I was coming back from Huntsville, Alabama,

and we had an emergency landing over Waco, Texas because of in bonkers lightning storm that came out of nowhere. So anyway, I was on planes forever, turned out couldn't get a flight out. I had to stay in Dallas for two days, technically Great Vine, Texas, which has a convention center called the Gaylord,

which is kind of like Disneyland and Vegas all in the biodome. It was a sight to behold. Anyway, I was stranded there this week for a couple of days and so I just kind of bummed around waiting for a flight that I could catch. And there was a guy who was a notary who came down next to me.

I was just like working in the lobby, writing, researching, dolphin masturbation as one does. And this guy sat down next to me, an older gentleman, and he appeared to be a notary. And then another guy met him and they started to sign some paperwork. And the guy who met up with him was like a younger guy. He looked sad or defeated.

And I started to get really sad that maybe this guy was signing divorce papers at a Vegas-like hotel in Texas. And I was like, oh man, I hope this is a good thing he's signing. Anyway, what did I do? I looked at the name tag he was wearing because he was at a conference.

And then I looked him up and I was very happy to see that now he's got a wife and a baby on the way. And I think he just flips houses, which is sad and problematic maybe in its own, I don't know how he does his business, but I was like, okay, this guy was probably just jet lagged or something. So anyway, that's me being a creep.

And I don't know, I was like, I need to make sure this stranger isn't going through something. Not, I don't know what I would have done. I didn't even have like a granola bar I could have offered him. Anyway, all's well, that ends well. I'm back home. In all, I had 22 flight delays,

two emergency landings and three extra days in Texas. And then I came home and I slept face first on the couch for a couple of days. Okay, bye bye. Hack a dermatology, homeology, cryptozoology, letology, nanotechnology, meteorology, spectrology, nephrology, seriology, cellulogy.

Space dolphins. What? So you should see them, space dolphins.