# Is This Dolphin Creating Art? With Link & Photo. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 2, 2006, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095 "2006-05-02T13:51:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/1 "2006-05-02T13:51:31Z")
OK, you really _ **really** _ need to read the link to understand this– [http://www.earthtrust.org/delrings.html](http://www.earthtrust.org/delrings.html) > [@](#): > > The young dolphin gives a quick flip of her head, and an undulating silver ring appears–as if by magic–in front of her. The ring is a solid, toroidal bubble two feet across–and yet it does not rise to the surface! It stands erect in the water like the rim of a magic mirror, or the doorway to an unseen dimension. For long seconds the dolphin regards its creation, from varying aspects and angles, with its vision and sonar. Seemingly making a judgement, the dolphin then quickly pulls a small silver donut from the larger structure, which collapses into small bubbles. She then “pushes” the donut, which stays just inches ahead of her rostrum, perhaps 20 feet over a period of up to 10 seconds. Then, stopping again, she regards the twisting ring for a last time and bites it–causing it to collapse into a thousand tiny bubbles which head–as they should–for the water’s surface. After a few moments of reflection, she creates another. The photo is amazing. 🆒🆒🆒 > [@](#): > > The silver rings, as it turns out, are “air-core vortex rings”, and the helices are a similar phenomenon. Invisible, spinning vortices in the water are generated from the tip of a dolphin’s dorsal fin when it is moving rapidly and turning. According to Hans: “Being unstable without a boundary nearby, the vortex line tends to form into a more stable form such as a helix. When the dolphins break the line, the ends are drawn together into closed rings. Owing to the Bernoulli effect, the higher velocity fluid around the core of the vortex is at a lower pressure than the fluid circulating farther away. Air is injected into the rings via bubbles released from the dolphin’s blowhole.” The energy of the water vortex is enough to keep the bubbles from rising for a reasonably long period–on the order of 10 seconds. There also seems to be a separate mechanism for producing small rings, which a dolphin can accomplish by a quick flip of its head. Are the physics of this right? Dopers–is this BS? If not BS, is this Dolphin creating Art? ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/2 "2006-05-02T16:26:38Z")
Wahhh! I want video. That sounds exceptionally cool. Is it art? Dunno–I think you’d have to get into what makes something ‘art’, and that, as I recall from my aesthetics course in college, is far more slippery than any dolphin. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/3 "2006-05-02T16:43:03Z")
Well, it’s either “art” or “play”, it seems. It’s intentional, repeated behavior with no porpoise. (ow! Ow! Stop hitting me!) But I can’t even figure out what’s art when it’s humans doing it. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/4 "2006-05-02T16:46:16Z")
So long, and thanks for all the fish. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/5 "2006-05-02T16:46:37Z")
Sounds to me like the cetacean equivalent of blowing smoke rings. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/6 "2006-05-02T23:31:19Z")
Cool Article, thank you for sharing. I wouldn’t call it art. I would call it creative play. It reminds me of the [Orcas that lure seagulls with fish](http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/01/D8CBQ0EO0.html). The various Members of the Dolphin family keep surprising us with the abilities they display to us. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/7 "2006-05-02T23:33:33Z")
I saw a news report a few weeks back of a small whale in a japanese aquarium who did something similar… I don’t know if it’s art, but it’s sure nifty. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/8 "2006-05-03T00:10:41Z")
It’s not art, it’s science. The critter is doing experiments in vortex dynamics. “Publish or perish” rules the undersea world too. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/9 "2006-05-03T00:48:07Z")
Here’s one video I found: [http://www.d-l-i.com/publikationen/mysterioese\_silberringe/bilder/delphin\_mit\_ringwirbel.mov](http://www.d-l-i.com/publikationen/mysterioese_silberringe/bilder/delphin_mit_ringwirbel.mov) Looks like play, not art. I imagine if young dolphins could light their farts, they would. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-dolphin-creating-art-with-link-photo/355095/10 "2006-05-03T01:40:10Z")
I remember seeing video of a guy who’d lay on the bottom of some shallow bit of the Caribbean with his scuba tank and blow air rings. The dolphins would watch them rise to the surface, then come back down to see him do it again and again. I didn’t know they could do it themselves. Cool.