In 1964, Jarvis Bastian did an experiment in dolphin communications,
described here:

http://whales7.tripod.com/policies/levasseur/levass2c.html

I believe I read in the last year or so of a recent, more decisive
follow-up to this work, in which the premise that dolphins do not have
a sophisticated language was shown by essentially replicating
Bastian's experiment with more mature dolphins.  But I can't find the
citation or a discussion of the work anywhere (I probably read about
it in NEW SCIENTIST or SCIENCE NEWS, but can't find the article).  So,
I'm looking for follow-ups to Bastian's work, done in the last decade,
that reached a definitive conclusion.  Thanks!

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 10 Nov 2005 10:02 PST

If this follow up report is sufficient I'd be delighted to post it as an answer:

"A careful reading of the two lengthy reports [By Bastian and Evans]
shows that this statement [essentially that dolphins have a complex
communicative language]is simply not true!"
WHALES ON THE NET - DOLPHIN INTELLIGENCE
http://whales7.tripod.com/policies/levasseur/levass2c.html

Please let me know.

tutuzdad-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 10 Nov 2005 10:22 PST

Good grief. How absent minded can I possibly be? Sorry for the
duplication of the source. I'll keep looking.

tutuzdad-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 10 Nov 2005 10:28 PST

Vladamir Markov and Vera Ostrovskaya, the two researchers who appear
to primarily dispute Jarvis Bastian?s research and experiments, are
both Russian and it appears that much of their counter-research is
published in French and Russian.

Tutuzdad-ga

Here is an interesting book about animal cognition.

http://grimpeur.tamu.edu/~colin/TheCognitiveAnimal/index.html
The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition