ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA — A team of Australian scientists have observed wild dolphins learning a trick from a dolphin, reports The Independent.<br /><br />The wild dolphins reportedly learned how to tail-walk from a dolphin who had spent time in a dolphinarium.<br /><br />Billie, the dolphin, was rescued from a creek and sent to a dolphinarium in Adelaide, Australia.<br /><br />While she was at the dolphinarium, she learned the tricks of the trade by watching the other dolphins.<br /><br />To perform the trick, dolphins have to rise vertically out of the water and move across the surface using their tails, by either going forward or backward.<br /><br />When Billie was released into the wild, she began doing this regularly. This is when the other dolphins also started picking up the trick.<br /><br />The study found about nine wild dolphins performing the trick in 2011, although the total number of performing dolphins have since diminished.<br /><br />Dr Luke Rendell, co-author of the study, says this gives us "a revealing insight into the potential social role of imitation in dolphin communities."
