We've heard crows, parrots, and lyrebirds speak human languages and imitate sounds they hear. But if it quacks like a duck... Except there was a duck who could talk. Ripper was born in 1983 at a nature reserve in Canberra, Australia, and was incubated by a chicken and raised by humans. Reports indicated that Ripper could talk, but by the time scientists stepped in to study him, Ripper was long gone, his keeper had died, and most of the records pertaining to Ripper were destroyed by fire. But we have some audio, retrieved from the Australian Sound Archive.
Ripper was an Australian musk duck (Biziura lobate), a species where males perform displays to attract females and warn off rivals. Along with non-vocal “paddle-kick” and “plonk-kicks” these displays include so-called “whistle-kicks” where the duck’s feet hit the water accompanied by soft low-frequency sounds and louder whistles.
Instead of singing the song of his people, however, Ripper took to sounds including one seemingly inspired by the hinge on his cage closing, while another sounds like “You bloody foo..”. It is thought his keeper may have called him a “bloody fool” often enough it sank in.
Many birds can learn to imitate sounds, sometimes including human speech. However, every species in which this has been reliably reported belongs to one of three clades: songbirds (including the extraordinary lyrebird), hummingbirds, and parrots. Other birds have innate calls unaffected by sounds they are exposed to. Occasional reports of vocal imitation in other species have never previously been independently verified.
A new science paper looks into the abilities of a duck imitating human sounds. You can hear that audio clip and read about the research at IFLScience. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Mdekool)
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