Dolphins “smile” while playing

New research has found that bottlenose dolphins playing in groups “smile” at each other. A team of scientists noticed that dolphins living in captivity often made facial expressions in which they opened their mouths, which looked like smiling or laughing. This usually happened when they were playing together. Bottlenose dolphins are very sociable and like to play together in groups, called pods. The scientists wanted to learn more about their behavior, so they recorded videos of 22 bottlenose dolphins at two wildlife parks. The dolphins were recorded while playing in pairs, with their human trainers, and on their own. During the 80 hours of video footage, the scientists counted 1,288 times when the dolphins used the open-mouth expression. The team said 92% of those instances happened when dolphins were playing…

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The Week Junior US (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 242

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