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New MRI scans revealed that dolphins show some skills and awareness thought to be exclusively used by humans, Discovery News reported.
"If we use relative brain size as a metric of 'intelligence' then one would have to conclude that dolphins are second in intelligence to modern humans," said neuroscience senior lecturer at Emory University Lori Marino.
Although she admitted that "size isn't everything", Marino said that there were at least two other evidence supporting her claim.
According to her, various features of the dolphin neocortex are "particularly expanded" and they show human-like skills, like mirror self-recognition, cultural learning, and understanding symbol-based communication systems and abstract concepts.
Marino, known as one of the world's leading dolphin experts, performed several MRI scans on dolphin brains and will present her findings at next month's American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting.
Experts believe that based on the new findings, "dolphin-assisted therapy" and marine park shows "are potentially psychologically harmful to dolphins and present a misinformed picture of their natural intellectual capacities."
"This point is based on the simple proposition that the more aware an individual is of one's present and future circumstances, the more intensely one may feel the difference between a pleasant and unpleasant situation, or the more one can think about, and thus experience, negative feelings and ruminate about the negative consequences of one's circumstances," Marino explained.
"If this proposition is not true, then there is no basis for assuming humans suffer more than any other given animal," she added.
"The scientific evidence on dolphin sensitivities reveals that they are vulnerable to trauma and suffering when forced to live in the confined context of marine parks," Marino said.
"Study shows that dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size, making them the second intelligent species after humans."
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Do they go buzzing around (at home or in the cockpit) and reducing populations of either there own or anothers neighborhood (COUNTRY)?
Regardless of our/their capacity, they certainly posses something we don't. As many species do. Kind of makes one recognize that there are human predators affecting us all.