Dolphin Watch
Shake it off
By ANN WEAVER
| Article published on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/101107_out-01.jpg) |
| By ANN WEAVER |
| This dolphin and the remora attached to its belly launches into the air. |
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Everyone has something they’d like to shake off but can’t. Whether real or existential, life’s little tribulations are here to stay.
In contrast, somehow animals seem above tribulation. What could the dazzling animals adorning Christmas wildlife calendars possibly have to endure?
Last Sunday was overcast. The sea were a dull gray. Suddenly a dolphin body shot skyward once and then again in the distant waters ahead. All right. What a way to start the day.
Dolphins leaping out of the water are one of the most thrilling and mysterious facts of life. We can describe aerials (behaviors performed over the water surface). There are several of them. Breaches are full body slaps. Leaps are long jumps. Bows are vertical U-turns. But we can’t explain them.
We slowed and swung wide to avoid the dolphins. But they had other plans. They vanished and reappeared directly off our bow. It was FM and her daughter AM, now 3 years old. FM chuffed as she slid past, her drawn-out cough another dolphin mystery.
They proceeded into a man-made cove hardened on three sides. FM hunted. AM resumed her aerials. Wow, did she put on a show. She did several series of 3 breaches each: Boom. Boom. Boom. Many of her breaches included elaborate twists like a person trying to wiggle out of a straitjacket. They showed the admirable flexibility of the dolphin body.
Stunning to watch, aerials are hard work to perform. By the time AM attracted the small family who scrambled from their van to videotape her, she was tiring. AM’s breaches eventually lost intensity. After lurching at the surface a final time, she began to hunt.
It was such a dark day, my digital camera didn’t work very well. The photographer in me was ungrateful: Here were all these wonderful aerials to film but where was the Florida blue sky? Oh well. Shake it off.
Why was AM breaching? Probably because of the little strip of skin that flipped off her belly each time she went airborne. The strip of skin was actually a remora, a specialist in scouring naked bodies. Her belly actually meant several inches below her belly button.
No wonder AM kept doing body slaps. She was trying to remove a ticklish remora from a ticklish spot.
Remoras don’t do harm. They don’t, for example, burrow out plugs of skin like cookie cutter sharks. They skim along inner tube-smooth dolphin skin and consume unwanted debris like a person giving themselves a mini-facial.
Of late, there’s been a rash of remoras among the calves of John’s Pass. And they all act like AM. So I think the two are associated.
Last year around tax time, young VC’s exceptional aerials showed that a remora slid over its tender belly. Last month, Little X’s aerials antics also revealed a remora scoring his belly.
Two weeks ago, elusive E and her little Easter were hunting when Easter erupted in a completely unexpected set of breaches. Pictures showed a small remora on its belly. A week before that, equally elusive Strip and young Stripe were stalking the shallows when Stripe burst out with unexpected breaches. It too had a remora on it. Same with Baby Face a week before that.
It makes sense that dolphins would use body slaps to rid themselves of remoras. Yet every calf was with its mother. Why doesn’t the mother dolphin just nip the annoying remora off their calf? After all, dolphins are known for nurturing behavior. On some occasions, they sense other’s problems and offer aid. They’ve saved people and other dolphins from drowning. Dolphin aunts reportedly help newborns to the surface for their first breath of air.
However, if I take a sliver out of your finger, it’s because I know it hurts and you can’t do it yourself. That means I know what its like to be you with a sliver and that I can do something about that. Dolphin moms would have to know the same thing about their calves, wouldn’t they?
Maybe that’s too complicated. Isn’t this a simple grooming problem? Monkeys and apes groom each other “all the time.” Aren’t they cleaning each other off? Not necessarily. When a young douc langur got a piece of gum stuck to her hair at the San Diego Zoo, the other doucs groomed her as usual but went completely around the gum. They never once tried to pick it off. (Maybe they’re smarter than we think.) Social grooming is not necessarily about helping the groomee.
Alas, as far as we know, dolphins don’t groom each other. They touch, pet and caress, but don't groom.
On the other hand, they do respond to one particular sensation in others: healing wounds. Our pictures show that healing wounds (like a shark bite) are often covered with toothrakes made by other dolphins. Why they do this is unknown, but it shows that dolphins are not wholly indifferent to the state of others.
Maybe the recent rash of remora-related aerials isn’t a remora-removal service at all. After all, dolphins are sensation seekers. They surf and bowride, rub on grasses and the ocean floor, and throw things around. Maybe they’re just playing and the remoras are a coincidence.
As for life’s little tribulations, animal behaviorists have theirs too. Yesterday was gorgeous. The sky hasn’t been this clear or the water this crystalline in a long time. Plus, the latest remora kid launched itself spectacularly skyward with that familiar flap of skin flipping off its belly. It reminded me to write this particular story. It gave me another chance to capture the behavior on film. But as it leapt, the only cloud in the entire sky floated in front of the sun. Sigh. Shake it off.
Other stories:
The urge to surge, Exhilaration, Attack of the Oyster, Oyster's Pearl, Tax Time, Big Day for Little X, Horsetails: A game or something else?, Carrying on with Coastal Keep Away, Smothering Mothering
Dr. Weaver studies wild dolphins under federal permit GA1088-1815, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Send her an e-mail at acweaver@tampabay.rr.com or visit www.dazzlingdolphins.com.
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Article published on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007
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