Eric Gaillard/Reuters
An orca has apparently learned to mimic a few words of human speech, like “hello” and “bye bye” – although whether or not it is actually making those sounds relies on a bit of very creative listening.
But even if the female orca called Wikie is really capable of mimicking us, it is more than just a cute finding. It sheds light on the mysterious cultures and dialects that orcas have created. And it is further evidence that these remarkable animals shouldn’t be held in captivity.
Orcas are also known as killer whales, although they are actually dolphins. Josep Call at the University of St Andrews, UK, and his colleagues trained Wikie, which lives in an aquarium in France, to copy a range of sounds on command. Wikie quickly learned to do this, and was even able to approximate more