Towards the end of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, the dolphins abandon Earth for another dimension with the farewell message: “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”
While the intelligence of many whale and dolphin species has been attested for decades, a comprehensive study suggests that collectively they may be even brighter than we thought. So perhaps the scenario imagined by Douglas Adams is not as fantastic as it sounds.
Some of the animals turn out to be so good at co-opting humans and other species that one has to wonder what else they are plotting. Whales and dolphins appear to have followed an evolutionary course that is remarkably similar to humans’, with stable, close-knit tribes giving rise to their own languages