Talking Duck Stuns Animal Behavior Researcher

Leiden University’s Carel ten Cate tracked down 34-year-old duck recordings—and the man who made them—to verify that musk ducks are capable of vocal learning, an ability that hadn’t been thought to exist in waterfowl.

Written byChristie Wilcox, PhD

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ABOVE: A male musk duck (Biziura lobata)
© ISTOCK.COM, ANDREW HAYSOM

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 ...

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Meet the Author

Christie Wilcox, PhD
Christie was a well-established science blogger and writer when she was awarded a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology with a specialization in ecology, evolution and conservation biology from the University of Hawai‘i in 2014 for her research on the genetics of lionfishes. A short two years later, she published her debut book Venomous: How Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry, which received widespread acclaim, and after that, she fully left academia behind and established herself as a science writer and editor. She joined The Scientist in 2021 as newsletter editor and left as senior editor in 2023. She is a member of the Author’s Guild, the Northwest Science Writers Association, and the National Association of Science Writers.
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