Orcas might be able to mimic human speech, like parrots and other animals. A caged orca that can replicate human speech and noises was the subject of a study. While some of the phrases are obvious, the voice may seem unsettling to listeners. Furthermore, the researchers think that the diverse dialects of killer whale pods can be explained by this imitation. Does the orca comprehend what she is saying? That is the true question.
Introducing Wikie
The study is based on Wikie, a killer whale who resides in Antibes, France’s Marineland Aquarium. She can make noises like “hello,” “Amy,” and raspberries. Wikie’s ability to imitate her trainer’s phrases with little to no preparation is astounding. She occasionally gets it right the first time.
Copying orcas
One known aspect of the species’ powers is mimicry. According to some sources, orcas mimic the sounds of bottlenose dolphins and sea lions, as well as the motions of their relatives.
As a co-author of the study and a lecturer at the University of St Andrews, Josep Call told the Guardian, “We wanted to see how flexible a killer whale can be in copying sounds.” “We believed that showing them something that is outside of their repertoire would be very convincing—in this instance, ‘hello’ [is] not what a killer whale would say.”
Educated to replicate
The study’s authors, who were from the UK, Chile, Spain, and Germany, published it in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. They conducted study on 14-year-old Wikie together. She has previously been trained to mimic the actions of another killer whale when directed by her trainer. She was instructed to “copy” three sounds made by her three-year-old calf, Moana, by the researchers using the same motion.
Introducing new sounds to Wikie
After that, Wikie was exposed to five distinct orca sounds that she had never heard before, some of which sounded like “blowing a raspberry” and a creaking door. Last but not least, they made her hear words like “hello,” “bye bye,” “one, two,” and “Amy,” along with a person making orca noises. The selection of these noises was intentional.
“I believe you are asking too much if you choose a word that is extremely complex,” Call remarked. “We desired items that were both brief and unique.”
mimicking human and orca sounds
Wikie’s two trainers evaluated her responses. Six researchers then verified the recordings, matching them to the original word or sound without knowing which ones they were. Over the course of 17 trials, the scientists observed that Wikie was quick to mimic human and orca sounds.
That’s what adds to its impressiveness. “Orcas can make a sound that is similar to what another species, in this case us, can make, despite the fact that their morphology [is] so different,” Call added. Videos of Wikie imitating have been uploaded to YouTube.
A demonstration of orca vocal mimicry
What’s even more amazing is that on her first attempt, Wikie was able to replicate the person making orca noises. Additionally, on her first try, she accurately pronounced two human phrases. Her head was out of the water as she made all of her noises.
Call stated, “I believe this is the first indication that killer whales might be learning sounds through vocal imitation, and this could be the foundation of the dialects we see in the wild; it is plausible.” Nevertheless, more research on wild orcas is required to validate this hypothesis.
A few warnings
Don’t confuse mimicking with speech, though. The notion that Wikie is “speaking English” was condemned by Call. “We have no evidence that they understand what their ‘hello’ stands for,” he clarified.
The findings is “exciting,” but there is a crucial disclaimer, according to Harvard University parrot cognition expert Dr. Irene Pepperberg. “Whether humans could accurately classify the different sounds produced without the models present for comparison would have been a stronger test,” she said.
Other imitations of animals
The first animal to mimic human speech was not Wikie. While most people think of parrots, National Geographic reports that orangutans, dolphins, elephants, and beluga whales have all been known to make human-like noises. How each of them accomplishes this is what’s fascinating. The beluga whale, Noc, used his nasal canals in place of human vocal cords. To say “hello,” “no,” and “sit down” in Korean, Koshik the elephant put his trunk in his mouth. It’s amazing what these animals can mimic when they lack the parts of the human anatomy that enable speaking. Hear killer whales imitating human speech.
