Kylie, a solitary common dolphin that has been fairly resident around Fairlie Bay and Largs coastline in Scotland for over 15 years, spent so much time around harbour porpoises that her vocalizations include high-pitched click bursts associated with porpoises instead of the whistles and pulse calls more commonly heard in dolphins.
Recordings from 2016 and 2018 were used to study her acoustic behaviour when seen alone and with a porpoise, the exchanges between them were more like a ‘conversation’ between members of the same species but it’s unclear if they understand each other, however on multiple occasions, female porpoises have been seen bringing their young calves to meet Kylie.
New research published in Bioacoustics suggests Kylie’s ties to porpoises are closer than scientists imagined and helps confirm various species in the wild interact much more than it was thought. Nobody knows where Kylie came from and when and why she ended up alone after being separated from her pod. Although solitary common dolphins are rare compared to lone bottlenose dolphins, Marine Connection has documented at least nine solitary common dolphins to date in various locations around the world.
Kylie hasn’t been sighted in the area for over a year which coincided when there was a week of intense storms which caused a massive drilling ship to become unmoored near her favourite buoy, it will be interesting to see if she returns to the area after so long.
