A study by marine mammal researchers at Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys reveals that dolphins cooperate to perform a task together.
The research, conducted in collaboration with a University of Western Australia scientist, studied pairs of dolphins swimming across a Florida Keys lagoon to reach and press black underwater buttons.
The buttons were wired to an above-surface computer to record actions and the time difference when both dolphins pushed the buttons.
Dr Kelly Jaakkola, Director of Research at Dolphin Research Center said the game was designed to test whether they could synchronise their behaviour.
"We wanted to see if dolphins could actively cooperate. In other words can they understand a situation where they have to work together to accomplish a task.
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"The dolphins didn't just succeed at this task. They were amazing at it. So by the end the difference in time between their button presses was just three hundred and seventy milliseconds."
In some tests, the dolphins were sent together. In others, there was a delay in sending one partner.
The other would wait, so that both pressed their buttons simultaneously.
DRC researchers are also studying whether dolphins use vocal signals or other ways to coordinate actions.
Study results were published in a biological research journal of The Royal Society, a United Kingdom-based scientific academy.
