Dolphins "have their own
names"

Dolphins communicate
like humans by calling each other by name, scientists in Fife reported on
Monday.本周一，苏格兰法夫郡的科学家们公布，海豚和人类一样，通过称呼对方的“名字”进行交流。

Scientists have long known that dolphins' whistling calls include repeated
information thought to be their names, but a new study indicates dolphins
recognize these names even when voice cues are removed from the sound.科学家们一直认为海豚叫声中包含的一些重复信息是它们的名字，但最新的一项研究表明，即使将声音中的音色因素消除，海豚也能识别出这些名字。

St Andrews University researchers studying in Sarasota Bay off Florida's west
coast Florida discovered bottlenose dolphins used names rather than sound to
identify each other.英国圣安德鲁大学的研究人员们在位于佛罗里达西海岸的萨拉索塔湾进行了此项研究，发现宽吻海豚并非通过嗓音，而是通过“名字”（叫声的内容）来识别对方。

The three-year-study was funded by the Royal Society of London.伦敦皇家学会为这项长达三年的研究项目提供了资金支持。

Dr Vincent Janik, of the Sea Mammal Unit at St Andrews University, said they
conducted the research on wild dolphins.圣安德鲁大学海洋哺乳动物研究中心的文森特·雅尼克博士说，他们的研究对象是野生海豚。

"We captured wild dolphins using nets when they came near the
shore," he said.他说：“当海豚靠近海岸时，我们就用网子将它们捉住。”

"Then in the shallow water we recoded their whistles before synthesising
them on a computer with the caller's voice features removed so that we had a
computer voice of a dolphin.“然后，我们在浅水区中将海豚的叫声重新编码，随即用电脑将叫声合成，并消除叫声的声音特点，这样就得到了每只海豚叫声的电子合成声。”

"Then we played it back to the dolphins through an underwater speaker
and we found they responded strongly. This showed us that the dolphins know each
other's signature whistle instead of just the voice.“接着，我们用一个水下扬声器将电子合成声播放给海豚听，发现它们有强烈的反应。这表明海豚能识别彼此的'署名叫声'，而并不仅仅是嗓音。”

"Now we know they have labels for each other like we do."“现在我们知道了海豚像人类一样，拥有自己的‘名字’。”

The findings are published in the US journal the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS).此项研究结果在美国《国家科学院学报》上发表。