A killer whale at a theme park in France has learned to mimic human words, according to a study.
The 14-year-old female orca named Wikie at the Marineland park in Antibes, France was the subject of a research study about how the aquatic mammals communicate.
The study released Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B titled “Imitation of novel conspecific and human speech sounds in the killer whale (Orcinus orca)” details how the orca uses its blow hole to make sounds like “hello” and “bye bye.”
The study was done in an effort to better understand how orca pods in the wild develop their own dialects when communicating, and that it is a learned ability, and not inherited.
Wikie is one of four Orcas at the park on the French Riviera, and had already been taught the ability to respond to human commands. From there, the researchers attempted to get the orca to respond and mimic human and nonhumans sounds.
Some of the sounds used in the study include a creaking door, wolf, elephant and a “strong raspberry” in addition to English words, “Amy” and “one two three.”
Wikie was very successful at recreating many of the sounds in the test using her blow hole.
“This accuracy level is particularly remarkable given that the subject possessed a very different sound production system compared to humans,” reads the report.
