Researchers are hailing a killer whale that appears to mimic human words such as "hello" and "bye bye".
Wikie, a 16-year-old female, lives at a marine park in France.
Researchers aimed to discover whether killer whales could learn new vocalisations by copying others, and she was taught to "speak" human words through her blowhole.
"The killer whale that we studied in captivity was capable of learning vocalisations of other killer whales and also human vocalisations by imitating them," said Dr Josep Call of the University of St Andrews, a co-researcher on the study, told the BBC.
"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."
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