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(Our happy-hour hero to amaze your drinking buddies with.)

A dolphin has been hailed as a hero after it came to the aid of two whales that were beached with seemingly no hope of rescue.

The pair of pygmy sperm whales were stuck on the shore of New Zealand's North Island. Although a group of (human) conservationists had tried to free them for an hour, they were about to give up.

But then, according to reports, a bottlenose dolphin known as Moko "appeared, communicated with the whales and led them to safety."

"I don't speak whale, and I don't speak dolphin," one local man told the BBC. "But there was obviously something that went on.... The dolphin did what we had failed to do."

Look, we're glad the whales are OK and all, but we can't help but feel slighted.

Those dolphins are always trying to outdo us humans. But who has the opposable thumb, dolphins? Who has the opposable thumb? That's right. We win. Game over!

Speaking of impressive animals, here are several cougars you should get to know.
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And remember dolphins, we don't want to do this, but there are always punishments that can be handed out for your insubordination. It happened to the anchovy, and it can happen to you:
World's Weirdest Pizza Toppings


Update:
We have received many agitated e-mails for readers such as Maria's: "What's up with very arrogant and stupid comments from Michael Rundle? (Rundle) Who are you to think you are so superior?? Opposable thumbs don't mean "Jack" when YOU are in the water and havin' a tough time finding YOUR way to land to save your own behind! "Careful pinhead---You may come back in the next life with flippers instead of your 'opposable thumbs' not to mention minus brain cells!" Are you on drugs?"

Michael Rundle's response: "Celebrating the opposable thumb is not arrogant. It is the proper recognition deserving of the pinnacle of 7 million years of human evolution. We've used those precious digits to build cities, walk on the moon, write poetry and combat disease. And all the dolphins have done is mess around in the ocean. So the dolphins can swim better than us? We can use our thumbs to build jet skis. The dolphins may have friendly smiles and whale-saving exploits, but we still win. This is our planet -- the dolphins just live on it."*

*This is, of course, tongue in cheek... to some extent. If you want to help save the dolphins -- despite Mr. Rundle's best arguments, you can donate funds at Greenpeace.org.