This is a video of Baby and Vater, the Amazon river dolphins of the Duisburger Zoo in Germany.
From New Scientist:
Dolphins wave weed to attract a mate
* 06 December 2007
* Emma Young
* Magazine issue 2633
While men might try flowers, smart clothes or cars to impress the opposite sex, male Amazon river dolphins carry weed.
Object-carrying has been reported throughout the dolphin’s range in Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia, but what had been thought to be play behaviour now appears – exceptionally among mammals – to have a sexual function.
Tony Martin of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, and Vera da Silva of the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Amazonas, Brazil, have studied the dolphins for three years in the Brazilian Amazon and are now convinced it is a sexual display. Only humans and chimps do anything remotely similar, says Martin. “It’s so unusual that many of my colleagues were sceptical when I first suggested the idea, but now I think the evidence is overwhelming,” he says.
Tourism to save the last 80 Mekong River Dolphins: here.
European Commission Talks to Charity about Plight of Biscay Dolphins: here.
Common Dolphin Stranded in England: here.
Striped dolphin strands alive in Cornwall: here.
Dolphin deaths in Cornwall: here.
Scottish dolphins ‘at risk from oil drilling’: here.