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AMSTERDAM, September 10 (Reuters) – A Dutch scientist has discovered old recordings of a musk duck mimicking the phrase “You fool!” – learned when it was raised by humans in an Australian bird park.
Leiden University scientist Carel Ten Cate said what was interesting about the vocal expression of the waterfowl, nicknamed “Ripper”, was not so much the message, but that it could mimic humans. at all.
“It’s definitely based on the human voice, although the pronunciation is a bit odd – which could be the Australian accent, I don’t know,” said Ten Cate, who published his findings in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in the Netherlands. biological research journal.
He said he initially wondered if the recordings, made in the 1980s, could be a hoax, but they were made by living ornithologist Peter Fullagar, who co-wrote the article. The recordings had been kept in sound archives and referenced occasionally until Ten Cate rediscovered them during his research into vocal learning in birds.
Ten Cate said Ripper had a bit more in his repertoire – he could also make a noise like the sound of a door closing and the click of its latch.
Some species of animals, and especially birds such as parrots and songbirds, are able to imitate human speech. But the phenomenon is rare – although a little more common in animals raised by humans.
“Finding a species quite outside of these groups … in a duck is pretty extraordinary. So it’s an evolutionary occurrence independent of vocal learning ability – it’s very special,” said Ten Cate. (Report by Toby Sterling edited by Mark Heinrich)
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