Dolphins these days have attained a reputation of being naturally friendly animals, known for their advanced intelligence and their beauty and grace in the sea. For most people, the mention of dolphins either raises memories of trained dolphins jumping through hoops and splashing water, or the image of a school of dolphins swimming along just past the crashing waves of the beach, but how many people immediately think of a helping hand? The connection between humans and dolphins is one that goes back centuries, as far as the ancient Greeks. There is no shortage of Greek mythology showing dolphins helping humans lost at sea, whether its saving a drowning person, rescuing someone from a shark attack, or guiding a lost ship to safety, humans have always felt a kinship with dolphins, a kinship that dolphins appear to reciprocate. There is no shortage of stories of dolphins helping humanity, but do they mean to? According to research, they just might.

Following their research on dolphins and the dolphin brain, scientist at Emory University have concluded that behind humans, dolphins are the second most intelligent animals on earth, behind humans. The study found that dolphins share many skills with humans, including being smart enough to recognize symbol based communication, their own identities and language, the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror, the ability to pass information from parent to child, and even the ability to read each others actions and behaviors in order to work together. There have even been reports of wild dolphins in brazil that work with fishermen, trapping fish close to shore and signaling the fishermen when to drop their nets, allowing the dolphins to easily get a large mean and the fishermen to make a larger catch. Upon discovering how intelligent dolphins are, it was proposed that dolphins should have rights, describing them as “non-human persons“, and India has even taken measures to ensure the protection of dolphins rights.

In an experiment done by Jack Kassewitz in Miami, the dolphins sound based language was produced as silent pictures, and the dolphins could recognize it as what was originally said with 86% accuracy. Think about that, because it is amazing. Dolphins speak to each other in a a specialized language, which is so advanced that they can recognize it when written down. Researchers are currently working on deciphering this language, with growing success.

Knowing that dolphins are so intelligent, is it possible that when they help a swimmer from drowning or a shark attack, they know fully well what they are doing? In other words, do dolphins feel empathy? Though there is no hard evidence to assert this, time after time dolphins seem to come from the depths to help humankind for no apparent reason. Now, this isn’t to say that dolphins are perfect peaceful creatures, they are still wild animals after all. The difference is their heightened intelligence, which allows them to do good and do harm more efficiently. Many people assert that dolphins helping humans from sharks is actually a selfish act for dolphins, because dolphins seem to inertly hate sharks, and have been seen going out of their way for no reason simply to annoy sharks. Because they are smarter and faster than sharks, small groups of dolphins have been known to confidently harass sharks, including flipping them upside down and lifting them to the service, effectively killing many sharks. Male Bottlenose dolphins have even been found to form small groups and forcefully mate with a single female which they single out, aggressively forcing her to stay with verbal and physical abuse. They have also been known to attack babies of other species, carefully biting them directly on their vital organs.

So as far as being our guardians in the oceans, that may be a bit of an over exaggeration, but dolphins are definitely one of the best things to see if you ever find yourself lost at sea. In the end though, they are still wild animals, unpredictable and not to be underestimated.