Story at a glance:
- Musk ducks in Australia are able to imitate sounds like a door slamming or a human cursing.
- Research on the animal’s ability to mimic sounds began in 1980.
- Songbirds, parrots and hummingbirds can also imitate sounds.
Musk ducks in Australia are able to imitate sounds, including from humans. In a newly surfaced video, a duck was recorded saying “you bloody fool” repeatedly.
This is the first documented case of a duck of any species mimicking sounds, The Guardian reported. Other birds that are able to do so include songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds.
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At the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, a male duck named Ripper was recorded saying “you bloody fool.”
Researchers say Ripper could be repeating what he learned from his caretakers, The Guardian reported.
The duck was raised by researchers in the late 1980s and was 4 years old when the recording was made, The New York Post reported. He was raised at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve near Australia’s capital Canberra.
A researcher at the Institute of Biology Leiden in the Netherlands spearheaded the study released Monday.
“The man, Peter Fullagar, told me that the duck was hand-reared and would have had heard the sound as a duckling,” Carel ten Cate, who led the study, said.
Ripper also knows how to imitate the sound of a door slamming.
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