Solitary dolphins
You may have heard of Donald the dolphin who was a popular Manx resident in the 1970s before he moved on to Wales and Cornwall. Donald was a solitary male bottlenose dolphin, a phenomenon which is not entirely uncommon around the world. A famous example is Fungie who was a resident in Dingle harbour since 1983 until his passing in October 2020.
Bottlenose dolphins are the most common dolphin species which exhibit solitary behaviour at times. It is thought that this happens because of the dolphins 'fission-fusion' society, in other words a very fluid and ever-changing social structure. Some years pods may not change at all, whilst other years it may reform completely due to bachelor males or mothers with juveniles moving around. Mother-calf pairs may move around as male bottlenose dolphins have been known to practice infanticide, that is killing the calf in order to free the female up again for mating. Solitary dolphins will not interact with other dolphins but may end up seeking out interaction with boats and humans, particularly around harbours.
We now consider Moonlight and Starlight a 'solitary pair' as they display the same behavioural characteristics as their solitary counterparts and both dolphins are becoming increasingly habituated. In Lone Rangers, (Godwin and Dodds 2019 (downloadable at end of this section)), their are six stages of habituation, with Moonlight and Starlight now at a level 3-4 but without the aggression.
To our knowledge there are no other documented cases of a solitary pair of dolphins, but there have been many cases globally of solitary individuals. You can read about each one in the Lone Rangers document.
Bottlenose dolphins are the most common dolphin species which exhibit solitary behaviour at times. It is thought that this happens because of the dolphins 'fission-fusion' society, in other words a very fluid and ever-changing social structure. Some years pods may not change at all, whilst other years it may reform completely due to bachelor males or mothers with juveniles moving around. Mother-calf pairs may move around as male bottlenose dolphins have been known to practice infanticide, that is killing the calf in order to free the female up again for mating. Solitary dolphins will not interact with other dolphins but may end up seeking out interaction with boats and humans, particularly around harbours.
We now consider Moonlight and Starlight a 'solitary pair' as they display the same behavioural characteristics as their solitary counterparts and both dolphins are becoming increasingly habituated. In Lone Rangers, (Godwin and Dodds 2019 (downloadable at end of this section)), their are six stages of habituation, with Moonlight and Starlight now at a level 3-4 but without the aggression.
To our knowledge there are no other documented cases of a solitary pair of dolphins, but there have been many cases globally of solitary individuals. You can read about each one in the Lone Rangers document.
| goodwin_and_dodds_-_2019_-_lone_rangers_a_report_on_solitary_dolphins_and_wh.pdf |
donald the dolphin in the 1970's with maura mitchell. Image copyright D. aspinall
