Fluency and elaboration in dolphin object play: evidence for creativity in behavioral exchanges?

Innovative behaviors in non-human animals have been proposed as indicators of flexible thinking. Although dolphins have demonstrated creativity under stimulus control, these paradigms relied on human-directed tasks and may have overlooked spontaneous expression. This study evaluated whether object play, an unprompted behavior, could serve as a proxy for dolphin creativity by examining object play in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in managed care and wild Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis). Video data were coded for object play events and analyzed for fluency (behavioral diversity and frequency) and elaboration (sequential organization), with consideration of object type and social context. In managed care, object play differed for bottlenose dolphins significantly by sex and age. Males accounted for 66.2% of events that were dominated by jawing, whereas females exhibited greater behavioral diversity, with higher proportions of carrying (82.4%) and pushing (87.5%). Younger dolphins showed higher frequencies of jawing (62.6%), whereas older individuals exhibited greater use of manipulation behaviors. Object use also differed by sex, with males primarily interacting with a single object category (80.5%), whereas females more frequently engaged with leaves (92.3%) and seagrass (64.3%). In contrast, wild spotted dolphins showed no significant differences across sex or age, and interactions were dominated by seaweed (≥ 81%) across all groups. Lag sequential analysis revealed structured, non-random behavioral organization for OP in both populations. Bottlenose dolphins exhibited more diverse behavior transitions than spotted dolphins. Higher-order analyses identified behavioral associations beyond immediate transitions, supporting behavioral elaboration. Object play offers a window into spontaneous creativity among dolphins to better understand their cognitive capacity in novel situations.