Like all good killer whales, Wikie the orca can leap and dive on demand. She can take fish from her trainer’s hand, and temporarily beach herself to greet the crowds. But when she does meet her fans, she can also now do something no other killer whale can do: say hello.
Scientists have successfully trained Wikie, who lives in a French aquarium, to talk. In a paper in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B they describe how after only a few tries she was able to make a passable attempt at repeating words such as “hello”, “bye bye”, “one two three”, and blow a perfect raspberry.
Her diction was not quite to human standards but the words were still recognisable — putting killer