Shark Bay bottlenose dolphins play at reproductive behaviours leads to later success, says UWA study [Video]

Male dolphins who play together as juveniles grow up to be more successful as adults, a joint study between the University of Western Australia and the University of Bristol in the UK has found.

In an international collaboration for the Shark Bay Dolphin Project, researchers spent 32 years tracking the behaviour of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay.

These findings show that young male dolphins with strong social bonds tend to practise immature versions of reproductive behaviour in a play setting.

The juvenile male dolphins who spend more time practising these behaviours in play will father more offspring as adults, which according to lead author Dr Katy Holmes, provides a rare link between juvenile social play and reproductive success in a wild animal.

“What we found was that the time the dolphins spent …