The picture shows Australia’s famous Musk Duck, a member of which has mastered the art of playing human words. Photo: File
Australia: Parrots and other birds can mimic the human voice, but this is the first time a duck has been seen mimicking a human phrase, and the phrase is ‘U Bloody Fool’, which is considered abusive in English.
This duck can make the sound of the door closing, coughing like a human, and now the latest thing is that it can say ‘Ubuldi Fool’ in a very clear way. Previously, this feature was found only in certain types of parrots and some birds.
These ducks float mainly in Australian waters. Young ducks learn to whistle loudly from their elders. If they are reared, they also learn sounds from humans, but so far there is no record of uttering words and now a duck can speak a whole sentence which can be heard here.
Musk is the biological name for ducks (Beziora lobata) which is now on the list of parrots, whales, hummingbirds and humans themselves due to their amazing ability to learn and speak. That is, they can talk about what they learned in childhood.
The study was conducted by Leiden University professor Coltin Kate and colleagues. “Voice learning and rendering is a rare feature that now makes ducks special,” he said.
When Professor Caltin found out about the Australian duck, he contacted Peter J. Flager, a well-known scientist there, who had heard such ducks say simple words 30 years ago. Dr. Peter separated from all the ducks and raised a four-year-old male. It’s called the Ripper. It also utters the first foolish words in anger and mimics the sound of the door to lure the substance.
In 2000, he raised another type of duck, the Pacific Black Dick, and soon it began to sound like a normal black duck, which was another amazing process. Following this information, Professor Caltin developed special software and took a full look at the ducks. He specifically considered how ducklings hear and react to the first few weeks of their lives. It was revealed that the ducks made dozens of different sounds at intervals of four seconds.
So it was confirmed that these ducks start learning new sounds at a very young age and thus their skills increase. But there came a time when he heard the roar of a pony from the throat of a musk duck, coughing and finally a male duck called U Bloody Fool which can be clearly heard. It should be noted that musk ducks like to be free in the water but in captivity she gets very angry and keeps reacting by learning new voices.
This research is included in the latest publication of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
