Recently, the government of India decided by law that "cetaceans...should be seen as 'non-human persons' and as such should have their own specific rights." This decision results from the political pressure, the public opinion, and the work of a small group of scientists who argue that dolphins have an intelligence that comes close to humans. In Germany activists and members of the Green Party demand that the dolphinaries in Duisburg and Nürnberg be closed. But how strong is the scientific evidence for the cognitive exceptionality of dolphins? Paul Manger [Neuroscience, 2013] reviewed the dolphin cognition literature and drew a quite sobering conclusion. But is his critique justified or does he throw the baby out with the bathwater? In an invited review to Brain, Behavior and Evolution (2014), Onur Güntürkün summarizes the literature on dolphin cognition and compares it with evidences from other animals. He concludes that dolphin cognition is not exceptional since there is not a single achievement that has not also been shown in several other species. However, in all major areas of comparative cognitive science, dolphins have been shown to achieve fast learning, high flexibility, and a swift transfer of learned knowledge to new contingencies. So, dolphins are in many respects cognitive generalists, performing at an overall high level. So, the evolution of high cognitive skills has independently taken place in several lines of life, among them primates, cetacean (mostly dolphins), birds (mostly corvids and parrots). There seem to be many different routes to intelligence.

Güntürkün, O. (2014). Is dolphin cognition special? Brain Behav. Evol., 83: 177-180.