This is scientific American 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

Killer whales, also called orcas, are like dolphins and belugas.

They all have a wide vocal repertoire.

But Orkhas also have unique

dialects among different pods which suggests the animals can learn new and unique sounds by

imitating mom or another whale. Researchers tested that premise by asking a killer

whale named wiki to imitate novel sounds from another killer whale,

like this.

Or this.

And then,

wiki's trainers asked her to imitate them, speaking English.

Here's how she did.

Amy.

Hello?

Pretty impressive, especially because she's using her nasal passages to imitate sounds we make with our vocal cords.

And a technical acoustic analysis of the original and imitated sounds showed that

Wicky was doing a reliable job of mimicry,

suggesting Orchas do indeed possess the ability of vocal imitation.

The study is in the proceedings of the Royal Society B.

So how long before Wikis speaking fluent English?

Well, this is not our goal.

Study author Jose Zamorano Abraumson, a comparative psychologist.

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