A group of sperm whales appear to have taken in a deformed bottlenose dolphin, marine researchers have discovered.
Behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause 1 the heartwarming scene some 15 to 20 kilometers off the Azores in the North Atlantic, as they observed the dolphin six times while it nuzzled and 2 members of the group, reports the journal Science.
"It really looked like they had accepted the dolphin for whatever reason. They were being very 3 " Wilson told the journal.
The dolphin"s unfortunate deformity—a spinal disfigurement, likely a birth 4 , which gives its back half an "S" shape—could help explain how it"s come to be taken in by the sperm whale group, explains Science .
"Sometimes some individuals can be 5 . It might be that this individual didn"t fit in, so to speak, with its original group," Wilson says, 6 that the deformity could have put the animal at a disadvantage among its own kind—perhaps it had a low social status, or just couldn"t keep up with the other dolphins.
Sperm whales swim more slowly than dolphins, notes the journal, and the pod designates (指派) one member to "babysit" the calves near the 7 while the other s dive deep.
In fact, sperm whales have good reasons not to like the deformed bottlenose dolphin. "Why would sperm whales accept this animal in their group" cetacean ecologist M6nica Almeida e Silva said. "It"s really 8 to me."
But maybe we shouldn"t draw too much from this 9 display of affection, because the briefness of the observation, and its rarity, as well as how little is known about these particular whales, makes it hard to 10 .