Reminds me of this anecdote from Fishing with John:
"I heard a story about this woman that was swimming in the ocean, and dolphins started swimming with her, and the dolphins kept poking her in the chest above her breast. She got scared and they took her out of the water, and she had a big bruise right on the top of her breast. They took her to the doctor to examine her, and they did a mammogram, and found that she had cancer right in that spot."
In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Louisiana State University.
On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee, inspected the elephants foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.
Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.
Probably wasn't the same fucking elephant.
I absolutely loved "Fishing with John" - that doesn't make the cancer-detecting dolphin a true story, though.
I can't vouch for dolphin sonar resolving fine anatomical detail /in vivo/, but dolphins can recognize visually obscured objects using the ability [0].
Yes, and as the wise narrator of this parody series points out, "What is most remarkable about this story is not that the dolphin knew the woman was sick, but that it knew she didn't know already."
"I heard a story about this woman that was swimming in the ocean, and dolphins started swimming with her, and the dolphins kept poking her in the chest above her breast. She got scared and they took her out of the water, and she had a big bruise right on the top of her breast. They took her to the doctor to examine her, and they did a mammogram, and found that she had cancer right in that spot."
– Jim Jarmusch, 'Fishing with John'
https://youtu.be/uVa8rj1mm7A?t=912