A killer whale has marked itself the first one ever to make sounds that are not of its native collection but instead English words like ‘hello’ and ‘bye bye’ and that too with its head above water.

Whales are popular for their amazing communication skills that allow them to talk to each other even when 100 miles apart. The new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B showed that these creatures were also able to copy human language on command. The 14-year-old orca named Wikie lives in France and was recorded to repeat English language words including ‘hello’, ‘one, two, three’ and ‘bye bye’ within 10 attempts.

https://soundcloud.com/user-861273941/orca-repeating-human-words

Audio credits: Science Alert

What made the study more interesting was that whales do not have the same vocal ability as humans. The lead author José Abramson expressed, “We found that the subject made recognizable copies of all familiar and novel and human sounds tested and did so relatively quickly, most during the first 10 trials and three in the first attempt.”

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Wikie was trained to recognize a ‘copy’ signal then invited to repeat 11 entirely new sounds given by her trainer. Apart from words, there were other noises too like of an elephant call, creaking door, and a howling wolf. When successful, Wikie was given a fish or an affectionate pat as a treat and six judges were also asked to rate if the voices matched the original word or sound, reported The Telegraph.

The researchers said, “The subject’s matching accuracy is all the more remarkable as she was able to accomplish it in response to sounds presented in-air and not in-water, the species’ usual medium for acoustic communication.”

Science Alerts reported that these voices, however, were not the perfect copies but were still recognizable.