Dolphins’ playful social habits form bonds, but spread virus

Three young male dolphins simultaneously break the water’s surface to breathe — first exhaling, then inhaling — before slipping back under the waves of the Chesapeake Bay.

“A perfect sync,” said Janet Mann, a dolphin researcher watching from a small skiff.

Synchronized breathing is something dolphins often do with close pals, like these males, or that mothers and calves do together, said Mann. It’s a way of affirming the relationships that are so important to these highly intelligent and social mammals, like a handshake or a hug among humans.

“It says, ‘We’re together,’” said Mann, who is based at Georgetown University.

While such close contact is essential to dolphin social bonds, sharing space and air can also quickly spread disease.

Mann and other scientists are trying to understand how a highly contagious and lethal disease called cetacean morbillivirus — related to measles in humans and first detected in Virginia and Maryland