Dolphins: Riding the Waves

About this episode

This episode explores the nighttime behaviors of dolphins, highlighting their intelligence and playful nature.

Tonight, we travel out across a wide, dark sea, where the moon lays a long silver path across the water and a whole pod of dolphins moves quietly together just beneath the surface. This is an episode about what dolphins do at night, and why they do it. They have names for each other. They remember those names for twenty years. They recognize themselves in mirrors. They see in the dark by sending out little clicks of sound and feeling the world come back to them. And because they know all of that, they get to do something that almost no other animal on Earth gets to do. They play. They laugh, with a sound scientists call a victory squeal. They leap fifteen feet out of the sea, twisting in the air, just for the joy of it. They surf. They blow perfect rings of air underwater and swim through them, again and again, just because they can. And then, when the night gets long, they sleep with only half of their brain at a time, while the other half keeps them breathing, watching, swimming. The pod takes turns. They hold each other up. They rest, so that tomorrow they can play again. This one is for the kid who loves animals, the kid who loves the ocean, and the parent who needs a…

People in this episode

Host: Josh Fleishman

Topics covered

• dolphins
• ocean
• animal behavior
• nighttime activities
• intelligence
• play
• sleep

Keywords

• dolphins
• ocean
• animal intelligence
• nighttime
• playful behavior
• marine life
• sleep patterns

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Dolphins: Riding the Waves

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