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“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck,” the old saying goes – but something that looks like an Australian wildlife keeper could also be a duck .
A duck named Ripper did something that has never been recorded among waterfowl; imitate sounds. Although Ripper is unfortunately no longer with us, his uniquely Australian voice is carried over into the audio files studied in the Royal Society B journal Philosophical Transactions. They provide the first scientifically authenticated case of a duck capable of learning the voice, and could open up opportunities to investigate why only certain birds can learn in this way.
Ripper was an Australian musk duck (Lobed biziura), a species where males perform displays to attract females and warn their rivals. In addition to unvoiced “paddles” and “plonk kicks”, these demonstrations include “whistles” where the duck’s feet strike the water accompanied by soft low frequency sounds and louder whistles.
Instead of singing his people’s song, however, Ripper has adopted sounds including one apparently inspired by the hinge of his cage closing, while another sounds like “You bloody foo ..”. It is believed that his guardian may have called him “bloodthirsty” often enough that he sank into it.
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Many birds can learn to imitate sounds, sometimes including human speech. However, every species for 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 the sounds to which they are exposed. Occasional reports of vocal imitation in other species have never been independently verified before.
The study’s first author, Professor Carel ten Cate of the University of Leiden, told IFLScience that Ripper’s discovery could be of great value in understanding the origins of vocal learning.
“Some songbirds imitate more and better than others,” said Professor ten Cate. “We can examine why, but to understand how vocal learning started, we need to know the ancestral trait. It evolved a long time ago under conditions that we cannot determine.
“Musk ducks must have evolved a lot more recently,” continued Ten Cate. “We can look at them and related species [that can’t learn vocally] and determine what the differences are.
A notable clue is that Australian musk ducks receive much longer and more intense maternal care than other waterfowl.
The Ripper was hatched in 1983 in the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, after being incubated by a dwarf hen and then hand raised.
While at CSIRO Wildlife Research, ornithologist Peter Fullagar regularly visited Tidbinbilla and heard staff talk about Ripper’s abilities. He recorded the sounds produced by Ripper and placed them in the Australian Sound Archive. The existence of a talking duck has been mentioned in Australian bird books and a doctoral thesis, but was not really studied during the Ripper’s lifetime.
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Two decades later, ten Cate was working on an examination of vocal learning in bird species. After encountering fleeting references, he tracked down the tapes, and eventually Fullagar. The couple collaborated, turning Ripper’s sound files into ultrasounds and comparing their shape to that of humans by saying “You screwed up” or “You screwed up food” to confirm the match.
Sadly, however, Tidbinbilla was devastated by a bushfire, and many records of the Ripper’s life were lost. His guardian also died, leaving important questions unanswered. For example, Ten Cate told IFLScience that we don’t know what female musk ducks thought of Ripper’s mild profanity.
Besides Ripper, Fullagar also recorded another Australian musk duck which showed less memorable vocal learning, mimicking the sounds of Pacific ducks, many of whom lived nearby.
Ten Cate has previously revealed that females of another Australian bird, the parakeet, find intelligence sexy. He agreed that unrelated Australian birds appeared to have a particular ease with vocal learning and related skills, and said it was not clear whether this was a coincidence or a product. of a distinctive feature of the continent.
The work may inspire vocal seekers to raise other men B. lobed in captivity and see if they are told to stoop.
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