WASHINGTON - Humpback whales have a type of brain cell seen only in humans, the great apes, and other cetaceans such as dolphins, US researchers reported on Monday.

A humpback whale breaches off South Africa's Kwa-Zulu Natal South Coast, July 9, 2004. Humpback whales have a type of brain cell seen only in humans, the great apes, and other cetaceans such as dolphins, US researchers reported on Monday. [Reuters]

This might mean such whales are more intelligent than they have been given credit for, and suggests the basis for complex brains either evolved more than once, or has gone unused by most species of animals, the researchers said.

The finding may help explain some of the behaviours seen in whales, such as intricate communication skills, the formation of alliances, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage, the researchers report in The Anatomical Record.

Patrick Hof and Estel Van der Gucht of the Department of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York studied the brains of humpback whales and discovered a type of cell called a spindle neuron in the cortex, in areas comparable to where they are seen in humans and great apes.

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