A new study led by the University of Sassari (UNISS) in Italy has found that bottlenose dolphins’ signature whistles, which they use to identify one another, are strongly influenced by where they live, and by the size of their local population. Although these whistles are unique to each individual animal, the experts discovered that their acoustic features are structured to a certain degree by dolphins’ local habitats and communities – a phenomenon similar to the development of regional accents in humans.  “Even if the bottlenose dolphin...