What do you use to identify another person? Probably things like their hair, face structure, voice, amongst others. Using multiple sensory inputs is called cross modal recognition and helps an organism identify relevant entities in their environment, making the process faster and more efficient. We know some animals have the ability to identify things this way, which requires a mental model of the entity, and possibly that they create a label in their mind of the entity that incorporates the different factors they use to ID them. But it is very difficult to prove what and animal is thinking in their mind - how do we know they have a label, or concept of an individual in this way? We know bottlenose dolphins have acoustic labels for individuals known as signature whistles (basically names), but do they use other cues as well? This study delves into this idea and whether bottlenose dolphins can 1. identify individuals by tasting their urine (gustatory) and 2. have a concept of an individual in their mind that includes both the chemical (urine) and acoustic (signature whistles) cues to that individual. Join us as we learn about this very interesting study and the implications for what this means in terms of animal intelligence/awareness.

Paper freely available: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm7684#:~:text=Here%2C%20we%20demonstrate%20that%20bottlenose,only%20social%20recognition%20in%20animals

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