Cetacean culture: Still afloat after the first naval engagement of the culture wars

Although the majority of commentators implicitly or explicitly accept that field data allow us to ascribe culture to whales, dolphins, and other nonhu mans, there is no consensus. While we define culture as information or beha viour shared by a population or subpopulation which is acquired from conspe cifics through some form of social learning, some commentators suggest rest ricting this by requiring imitation/teaching, human analogy, adaptiveness, stability across generations, progressive evolution (ratchetting), or speci fic functions. Such restrictions fall down because they either preclude the attribution of culture to non-humans using currently available methods, or exclude pal ts of human culture. The evidence for cetacean culture is stro ng in some cases, but weak in others. The commentaries provide important in formation on the social learning abilities of bottlenose dolphins and some interesting speculation about the evolution of cetacean cultures and differ ences between the cultures of different taxa. We maintain that some attribu tes of cetacean culture are currently unknown outside humans. While experim ental studies, both in the laboratory and in the wild, have an important ro le in the study of culture in whales and dolphins (for instance in determin ing whether dolphins have a Theory-of-Mind), the real treasures will. be un covered by long-term observational studies at sea using new approaches and technologies.