ABOVE: A male musk duck (Biziura lobata)
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If it walks like a duck and talks like a person, it’s probably a musk duck (Biziura lobata)—the only waterfowl species known that can learn sounds from other species. The Australian species’ facility for vocal learning had been mentioned anecdotally in the ornithological literature; now, a paper published September 6 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B reviews and discusses the evidence, which includes 34-year-old recordings made of a human-reared musk duck named Ripper engaging in an aggressive display while quacking “you bloody fool.”
The Scientist spoke with the lead author on the paper, Leiden University animal behavior researcher Carel ten Cate, to learn more about these unique ducks and what their unexpected ability reveals about the evolution of vocal learning.
Carel ten Cate: Vocal learning, as it is used in this case, is that animals and humans, they ...
