After two months the beluga whale
learned to speak to its dolphin neighbours
A whale that was living close to
a pod of bottlenose dolphins has learnt to speak their language, according to
new research.
Two months after the beluga whale
was introduced into a new facility with the dolphins, scientists found
that it began to imitate their whistles.
The four-year-old whale was moved
in 2013 to live in the Koktebel dolphinarium in Crimea, with details of
the discovery reported in science journal Animal Cognition.
And as the whale
learned to communicate in the dolphins’ language, scientists found
that the whale began losing its own.
“Two months after the beluga’s
introduction into a new facility, we found that it began to imitate whistles of
the dolphins, whereas one type of its own calls seemed to disappear,” said
researcher Elena Panaova, of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
She added: "While the
imitations of dolphin whistles were regularly detected among the beluga's
vocalisations, we found only one case in which the dolphins produced short
calls that resembled those of the beluga.”
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