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Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Lives and Minds of Potomac Dolphins,” with Janet Mann, professor of biology and psychology at Georgetown University and author of Deep Thinkers: Inside the Minds of Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises, and Verena Conkin, currently a lead researcher on the Potomac-Chesapeake Dolphin Project.
Having spent over 30 years studying wild bottlenose dolphins 13,000 miles away, off Western Australia, Janet Mann was overjoyed to encounter them in the Potomac River, literally in her backyard. She responded by launching the Potomac-Chesapeake Dolphin Project, a research project that has documented more than 2000 individuals, including one they watched being born in the Potomac.
Come to Penn Social this Earth Day for a fascinating talk by one of the world’s leading dolphin experts and her research team, who will describe what their local research project has found.
You’ll learn how bottlenose dolphins, which have brains similar in size to ours and much larger than chimpanzees’, navigate the marine world using cognitive abilities strikingly different from our own. You’ll gain a deep understanding of how they maintain their own complex society, with long-term bonds, friends, allies, and enemies.
You’ll become familiar with the habits of our local dolphin population and find out why they are coming into the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River each year and where they travel on their journeys. You’ll also be introduced to local dolphin residents, who—this is Washington, after all—now bear names such as Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin and Nancy Pelosi.
You’ll walk out eager for a chance to look out over local waters with a heightened sense of wonder, eager to spot our smart aquatic friends. Dr. Mann will donate her proceeds from the talk to the Potomac-Chesapeake Dolphin Project. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: A bottlenose dolphin surfaces. (NASA photo taken near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.)
