Sydney: Scientists have found a killer whale in France capable of imitating the sounds of other orcas as well as human speech, including the words “hello,” “Amy,” and “bye bye.” The 14-year-old female killer whale name Wikie, housed in an aquarium in Antibes, France, was able to mimic words and make fart-like noises, according to a study published on Wednesday in the science journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
A high-pitched and eerie voice uttering the name “Amy” is quite clear in the audio released by the study’s researchers.
“The results reported here show that killer whales have evolved the ability to control sound production and qualify as open-ended vocal learners,” researchers wrote in the study.
Wikie learned to make human sounds when her blowhole was exposed to the air by copying a trainer at a marine park in France.
The study also showed that the animal was able to copy unfamiliar sounds produced by other orcas.
“We have no evidence that they understand what their ‘hello’ stands for,” one of the researchers said. The authors of the study are not sure how many other speech-capable orcas exist, they said in a statement.
“This could be a start to studying vocal imitations in the species,”the researchers said.
Scientists say vocal imitation is a hallmark of humans and is rare to find in other mammals. Dolphins, elephants, orangutans and beluga whales have been recorded mimicking human sounds, although it’s unusual and the range of sounds is limited.
Killer whales, the largest of the oceanic dolphin family and one of the world’s most powerful predators, live in groups and have unique “dialects.” They are known for their ability to copy the movements of other orcas and have also been reported to mimic the sounds of bottlenose dolphins and sea lions.
Jose Abramson, a co-author of the study, said basic “conversations”with Wikie may be possible one day.
“Yes, it’s conceivable... if you have labels, descriptions of what things are,” he said, but warned about imposing human concepts on animals.
“It has been done before with a famous grey parrot and dolphins using American sign language: sentences like ‘bring me this object’ or ‘put this object above or below the other’.”
“But we will gain more if we try to understand the natural way each species communicates in its own environment than if we try to teach a human language,” Abramson said. — dpa
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