HONOLULU–In
an announcement with grave implications for the primacy of the species
of man, marine biologists at the Hawaii Oceanographic Institute
reported Monday that dolphins, or family Delphinidae, have evolved
opposable thumbs on their pectoral fins.
"I believe I speak for
the entire human race when I say, 'Holy fuck,'" said Oceanographic
Institute director Dr. James Aoki, noting that the dolphin has a
cranial capacity 40 percent greater than that of humans. "That's it for
us monkeys."
Aoki strongly urged humans, especially those living
near the sea, to learn to communicate using a system of clicks and
whistles in a frequency range of 4 to 150 kHz. He also encouraged
humans to "start practicing their echolocation as soon as possible."
Delphinologists
have reported more than 7,000 cases of spontaneous opposable-digit
manifestation in the past two weeks alone, with "thumbs" observed on
the bottle-nosed dolphin, the Atlantic humpback dolphin, and even the
rare Ganges River dolphin.
"It appears to be species-wide," said
dolphin specialist Clifford Brees of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal
Laboratory, speaking from the shark cage he welded shut around himself
late Monday. "And it may be even worse: We haven't exactly been eager
to check for thumbs on other marine mammals belonging to the order of
cetaceans, such as the killer whale. Oh, Christ, we're really in the
soup now."
Thus far, all the opposable digits encountered appear
to be fully functional, making it possible for dolphins–believed to be
capable of faster and more complex cogitation than man–to manipulate
objects, fashion tools, and construct rudimentary pulley and lever
systems.
"They really seem to be making up for lost time with
this thumb thing," said Dr. Jim Kuczaj, a University of California–San
Diego biologist who has studied the seasonal behavior of dolphins for
more than 30 years. "Last Friday, a crude seaweed-and-shell abacus
washed up on the beach near Hilo, Hawaii. The next day, a far more
sophisticated abacus, fashioned from some unknown material and capable
of calculating equations involving numbers of up to 16 digits, washed
up on the same beach. The day after that, the beach was littered with
thousands of what turned out to be coral-silicate and kelp-based
biomicrocircuitry."
"My God," Kuczaj added. "What are they doing down there?"
It
is unknown what precipitated the dolphins' sudden development of
opposable thumbs. Some dolphin behaviorists believe that the gentle
marine mammal, pushed to the brink by humanity's reckless pollution and
exploitation of the sea, tapped into some previously unmined mental
powers to spontaneously generate a thumb-like appendage. However, given
that 95 percent of the world's dolphin experts have committed suicide
since learning of the development, the full story may never be known.
"You
must believe, sleek ocean masters, that many of us homo sapiens weep
with shame and disgust over the degradation to which our species has
subjected our All-Mother, the Great World-Sea," read the suicide note
of Dr. Richard Morse, a Brisbane, Australia, delphinologist and regular
contributor to Marine Mammal Science. "If you are reading this, I
estimate that it is the day we know as August 31, 2000. Please be
decent and kind masters to our poor ape-race. Oh, God, I'm so sorry
about the tracking collars."
"Scientists once wondered whether
dolphins, with their remarkably advanced social and language
structures, are actually smarter than we are," said Aoki, ushering
reporters out of the laboratory he claimed "will either be a smoking
hole or a zoo exhibit in the coming Dolphin Age." "Well, we're not
wondering anymore."
