In keeping with Amazonian folklore, the realm’s male river dolphins are shapeshifters (encantade), remodeling at night time into good-looking younger males who seduce and impregnate human ladies. The legend’s origins might lie in the truth that dolphins have reasonably human-like genitalia. A gaggle of Canadian biologists did not spot any suspicious shapeshifting habits over the 4 years they spent tracking a dolphin inhabitants in central Brazil, however they did file 36 circumstances of every other human-like habits: what seems to be some kind of cetacean pissing contest.
In particular, the male dolphins rolled over onto their backs, displayed their male contributors, and introduced a circulation of urine as prime as 3 toes into the air. This most often befell when different men had been round, who gave the impression fascinated in flip by means of the arching streams of pee, even chasing after them with their snouts. It is in all probability a type of chemical sensory communique and no longer simply a want to relieve themselves, in step with the biologists, who described their findings in a paper revealed within the magazine Behavioral Processes. As co-author Claryana Araújo-Wang of CetAsia Analysis Staff in Ontario, Canada, instructed New Scientist, “We had been truly surprised, because it was once one thing we had by no means noticed prior to.”
Spraying urine is commonplace habits in lots of animal species, used to mark territory, shield towards predators, be in contact with different contributors of 1’s species, or as a way of mate variety, since it’s been prompt that the chemical compounds within the urine lift helpful details about bodily well being or social dominance.
