I’ve never been 100% sure which species was going to rise up and overthrow us as revenge for our horrible mistreatment of the planet and all life on it, but I can’t say I’m surprised to learn that it’s going to be the humble killer whale.
As the BBC is reporting, a captive killer whale named Wilkie that lives (read: is imprisoned) in a marine park in France has learned to mimic some basic human speech by ‘talking’ out of its blowhole, in a manner frighteningly similar to the horrifying shrieks made by the talking dolphins in 1973 science fiction film Day of the Dolphin.
Apparently the creature, whose terrifying powers are growing now even as we speak, has mastered such words and phrases as “hello“, “Amy“, and “one, two, three“, presumably moving on shortly to entire books, specifically chemistry textbooks and the Anarchist’s Cookbook.
Obviously, Wilkie does not speak or understand English (or, at least, that’s what Wilkie wants us to think), but she is demonstrating the impressive ability to recreate a sound just from hearing it, according to researcher Dr Josep Call:
In mammals, it is very rare. Humans obviously are good at it… Interestingly, the mammals that can do best are marine mammals.
According to Dr Call, this ability might explain how and why they develop complex ‘dialects’ within groups:
The killer whale that we studied in captivity was capable of learning vocalisations of other killer whales and also human vocalisations by imitating them, therefore this result suggests this is also a plausible explanation for how killer whales in the wild learn the vocalisations of other killer whales and how they develop their dialects.
You can hear her somewhat terrifying vocalisations below:
A whale that can count and say hello! 😲🐳 pic.twitter.com/VHdE3BJ4FL
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) January 31, 2018
We wish Wilkie nothing but the best of luck as she uses her newfound powers to stage an heroic escape before she gets Blackfish‘d.
