Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
There will be news tomorrow as Israel finalizes its ceasefire deal with Hamas. In the meantime, let’s hear a story about how orcas can imitate human speech. Apparently this horrifies some people, but I think it’s cool.
The story comes from an entertainment newsite, vt.com, and here’s an excerpt: (it’s from 2018 but I bet you didn’t know this):
Killer whales, the largest dolphin species and apex predators, possess remarkable intelligence, including the ability to mimic human speech.
This discovery was made by a team of researchers from Germany, Spain, the UK, and Chile, who conducted a study into the vocal capabilities of orcas and published their findings in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, in 2018.
“We wanted to see how flexible a killer whale can be in copying sounds,” Josep Call, professor in evolutionary origins of mind at the University of St Andrews and study co-author, told The Guardian.
“We thought what would be really convincing is to present them with something that is not in their repertoire – and in this case ‘hello’ [is] not what a killer whale would say,” he added.
The team trained Wikie, a 14-year-old female orca living in an aquarium in France, to copy three sounds made by her three-year-old calf, and then tested her ability to imitate five unfamiliar orca sounds.
Wikie was then exposed to three orca sounds and six human sounds, including the words “hello,” “Amy,” “ah ha,” “one, two,” and “bye-bye”.
The team was amazed to discover that the orca was able to quickly replicate the sounds, successfully mimicking two on the very first attempt.
Here’s Wikie in a news story. It’s pretty amazing. Orcas live in pods that are matrilineal, and each pod has its own repertoire of sounds culturally inherited over many generations, and coming from mom.
More:
Recordings of Wikie’s attempts to mimic human speech have been released on social media, with some listeners finding them “terrifying”.
One user said: “This is as terrifying as it is hilarious,” while another quipped: “Ok, that second hello was a little demonic. Was that really an orca, or the Devil speaking through a ghost box LOL The funniest and scariest thing EVER!”
“Now I’m scared,” a third wrote, and a fourth added: “OK that’s the creepiest f’ing thing I’ve ever heard.”
However, others were amazed at the orca’s ability. “That’s genuinely amazing,” one person said. “These giants are much smarter than we think….amazing,” a second chimed in.
“Certainly a momentous occasion discovering another mammal that can enunciate human language. This could be significant given the high level of intelligence orcas have?” someone else shared.
Some of the “scary” noises. They’re not as good as parrots or crows, but they’re discernible. The abilities to imitate are probably evolved as a cohesion mechanism for pods, but what their pod-specific noises are learned. In that way it’s just like human language.
Here’s the Proceedings of the Royal Society article (click for free access). I’ve put the abstract below along with what was known about vocal imitation in orcas and in other species as well.
Abstract
Vocal imitation is a hallmark of human spoken language, which, along with other advanced cognitive skills, has fuelled the evolution of human culture. Comparative evidence has revealed that although the ability to copy sounds from conspecifics is mostly uniquely human among primates, a few distantly related taxa of birds and mammals have also independently evolved this capacity. Remarkably, field observations of killer whales have documented the existence of group-differentiated vocal dialects that are often referred to as traditions or cultures and are hypothesized to be acquired non-genetically. Here we use a do-as-I-do paradigm to study the abilities of a killer whale to imitate novel sounds uttered by conspecific (vocal imitative learning) and human models (vocal mimicry). We found that the subject made recognizable copies of all familiar and novel conspecific and human sounds tested and did so relatively quickly (most during the first 10 trials and three in the first attempt). Our results lend support to the hypothesis that the vocal variants observed in natural populations of this species can be socially learned by imitation. The capacity for vocal imitation shown in this study may scaffold the natural vocal traditions of killer whales in the wild.
And what was known anecdotally:
Elucidating the precise mechanism of social learning involved is difficult, however, particularly for acoustic communication in wild populations. Although killer whales are capable of learning novel motor actions from conspecifics through imitation , the experimental evidence for vocal production learning is still scarce in this species. There are reports of killer whales in the field and in captive settings suggesting that they can copy novel calls from conspecifics, and even from heterospecifics such as bottlenose dolphins or sea lions. One Icelandic female was found to match novel calls from a Northern Resident female with whom she had been housed together for several years. Two juvenile killer whales, separated from their natal pods, were observed to mimic the barks of sea lions in a field study . Crance et al. [and Musser et al. took advantage of two unplanned cross-socializing experimental situations to show that two juvenile males learned novel calls from an unrelated but socially close adult male, and three individuals learned novel whistles from a dolphin, respectively.
However, as suggestive as these reports are, the lack of experimental controls curtails the interpretation about the underlying acquisition mechanisms. Experimental data are needed to ascertain whether vocal learning is a plausible mechanism underlying the complexity of vocal traditions in wild killer whales. However, to the best of our knowledge, not even anecdotal reports exist about killer whales spontaneously mimicking human speech similar to those reported in some birds (e.g. parrots, mynahs) and mammals (elephants, seals, belugas ).
Elephants can miic human speech? Here’s one elephant in Korea who can:
It was a long flight (4 hours) from Burbank to Chicago, though the trip was made easier by the tiny size of the Burbank Airport, aka Bob Hope airport. It’s infinitely better than LAX and security scanning with PreCheck took about two minutes. Still, My back was on fire the whole time from my flooding-induced back pull, and on top of that I was sporadically nauseous and thought, for the first time in my life, I would have to use the convenient vomit bag in the seat back. But I am tough and controlled it all. The nausea is now gone but my back—well, if you’ve pulled your back you’ll know how it feels. And there is no cure but time.
I see I am kvetching, but I had a great time in LA despite the nearby fires (I saw no sign of them save a slight haze in the air and a whiff of wood smoke). The weather was sunny and warm, the conference talks were good, and I enjoyed catching up with three pairs of friends after the meeting. Now it is back to the same ol’/same ol’, but in the next week or so I should have three novel things to announce.
In the meantime, Hili dialogues and their usual contents will begin tomorrow, and don’t forget to send any wildlife photos you’d like to contribute.
Late this morning I fly from Burbank to Chicago (there’s a nonstop flight!) and will be home this evening. Yesterday was no-diet day, including a visit to Blinkie’s donuts, a homemade cake for me, lunch at In-N-Out Burger, and dinner at a nice Asian restaurant.
There was a disaster in my hotel room, with water suddenly spouting up from the bathroom sink drain and flooding the room (the cause is unknown). I had to flee to a new room before everything got soaked, and in the rush threw my back out! Oy! I had to sleep on the wrong (left side) to ameliorate the pain.
But I kvetch. Today I’ll ask readers to discuss the Issues of the Day, foremost among them being the on-again off-again ceasefire deal to end the Gaza War. It looked all wrapped up, but now the Israeli cabinet has held up finalization, saying that Hamas added extra demands. My main concern about this deal is that it appears to leave Hamas in power, which would be a disaster for Israel.
But I have to pack, so please discuss any issues you want today, and I should be back in action by Friday, or Caturday at the latest.
Bonus photo taken by Carole Hooven: Luana Maroja (right), Julia Schaletzky, and I during our discussion at the USC conference.
A bagel (Yiddish: בײגל, romanized: beygl; Polish: bajgiel[ˈbajɡʲɛl] also spelled beigel) is a bread roll originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. Bagels are traditionally made from yeasted wheat dough that is shaped by hand into a torus or ring, briefly boiled in water, and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior.
Linguist Leo Rosten wrote in The Joys of Yiddish about the first known mention of the Polish word bajgiel derived from the Yiddish word bagel in the “Community Regulations” of the city of Kraków in 1610, which stated that the food was given as a gift to women in childbirth. There is some evidence that the bagel may have been derived from pretzels made in Germany brought by immigrants to Poland.
In the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, the bajgiel became a staple of Polish cuisine. Its name derives from the Yiddish word beygal from the German dialect word beugel, meaning ‘ring’ or ‘bracelet’.
I have long mourned the degeneration of the bagel in America from the dense and chewy palm-sized vehicle for lox or a schmear into a huge and fluffy torus made of Wonder Bread. There are still places in NYT and Montreal where you can get the real thing, but they are thin on the ground.
Here’s the best way to eat a bagel: with lox and a schmear. (Poppy-seed and plain bagels are permitted, but no others!)
I am flying home from Burbank tomorrow morning, and so my California interlude will end. Despite the fires, the weather where I am (now Pasadena) has been lovely, with warm sun and clear blue skies.
Yesterday I tooled around Pasadena with my friend Ben, who lives here and gave me the Grand Tour. It’s a lovely city with some gorgeous houses ($2-3 million each) and, of course CalTech, a university with fewer than a thousand undergraduates and about 1400 graduate students. Yet the campus is large.
I had dinner with Robert Lang and his wife Diane at at the Green Street Restaurant, an excellent venue, and learned about their fire saga over a carafe of zinfandel. Luckily, they had fire insurance for both houses and the studio, so they will be rebuilt, though, depending on the cost, one burned home may be left as a lot for sale. But rebuild they will, as they love this area. Here’s my dinner: a flank steak, cooked rare, of course, and a copious salad Dianne on the side. The salad, a local speciality also called a “Pasadena salad” was terrific (the ingredients are described here).
Today will be a day of gluttony with my friends Justin and Michelle, including a visit to the famous Blinkie’s Donuts in Woodland Hills, other homemade baked goods whose identity this morning is mysterious, a visit to In-N-Out Burger for lunch, and a yet-to-be determined dinner. I have eaten fairly abstemiously
Da Nooz;
*Yesterday Pete Hegseth, Trump’s controversial choice for Secretary of Defense, faced a stiff grilling from a House committee. I predict he’ll get through despite the fact that he lacks the requisite experience, but what do I know? Highlights from the NYT (more hearings to come):
Pete Hegseth’s four-hour hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday was strikingly contentious. Democrats derided him as blatantly unqualified to oversee the Defense Department’s three million employees and $849 billion budget. Republicans acknowledged that he was an unconventional pick, but said he was just what the Pentagon needed. And Senator Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican who is an influential member of the panel, said after the hearing that she had been won over.
The four takeaways from the NYT: “Hegseth looks as if he has the votes to get out of committee,” “Hegseth portrayed his life as a redemption story” (barf!), “He faced fierce queries over his views on women in combat” (he said earlier he didn’t think women should serve in that role), “Republicans praised his communication skills, honed as a television anchor,”
And get a load of this (bolding is mine):
Mr. Hegseth repeatedly refused to say whether an accusation of sexual assault or excessive drinking or marital infidelity should disqualify someone from leading the Pentagon. He also did not promise that he’d resign if he were to break his promise not to drink if confirmed.
In general, he skirted specific allegations about his personal conduct, simply claiming that he had been the victim of false allegations by anonymous sources, circulated by media organizations he said were determined to destroy him.
“I’m not a perfect person, but redemption is real.” he said at one point. He also said, “I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully I’m redeemed by my lord and savior Jesus.”
Jesus will be running the Defense Department! Fasten your seat belts. . . .
Some Senate Republicans left recent meetings with former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard with reservations about the qualifications of the person President-elect Donald Trump chose to oversee the U.S. intelligence community.
Those concerns have largely remained private, and GOP lawmakers are expected to publicly support her despite their misgivings. But further missteps could jeopardize her nomination as Trump prepares to take office.
In her meeting with Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), Gabbard couldn’t clearly articulate what the role of director of national intelligence entails, two Senate Republican aides and a Trump transition official said. When she met with Sen. Mike Rounds (R., S.D.), Gabbard seemed confused about a key U.S. national-security surveillance power, a top legislative priority for nearly every member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, conflating it with other issues, the aides said.
Senators are under pressure from Trump and his allies to vote in favor of his nominees. After a Tuesday confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to the president-elect, signaled his support for launching primary challenges against Republican senators who oppose the nomination.
No Republican senators have said they would oppose Gabbard’s nomination, but Sen. John Curtis (R., Utah) said during an event hosted by Politico on Tuesday that he needs more information about Gabbard before she can win his vote. Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) told reporters last month after their meeting that she would wait for Gabbard’s background check and hearing before making any decisions about her candidacy. Gabbard, a former Democrat turned MAGA loyalist, endorsed Trump in August and became an outspoken surrogate for his national-security agenda during his 2024 campaign.
The House on Tuesday passed legislation banning transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports in elementary school through college, elevating a top GOP campaign issue to one of the first priorities in the new Congress.
The bill passed 218-206, with all Republicans present voting yes and all but two Democrats voting no. If the measure becomes law, schools that allow trans girls or women to compete could lose federal education funding.
The measure was last debated in 2023, when not a single Democrat voted yes. Since then, Republicans have repeatedly pressed the matter as a threat to girls’ and women’s sports, spending at least $111 million on political ads making the case last year.
On Tuesday, Republicans argued that female athletes face unfair competition and are not safe when transgender girls and women are allowed to participate in girls’ sports, and they rejected the idea that someone born one gender can change to another.
. . . . Democrats called the bill harmful to children, logistically impractical and distracting from more important matters. Some noted that the bill would apply to young kids playing for fun as well as highly competitive college athletics, saying those situations should be treated differently.
I’m afraid that the Democrats, striving to be avatars of equity, got it wrong on this one, and it won’t make them look good in further elections. Perhaps there can be mixed-sports teams in elementary school, but once you get to high school and college, and trans women have experienced male puberty, the whole game becomes unfair to women. I am amazed that the Dems voted as a unit to approve of trans women competing against natal women in high school and in college. Do they not know the athletic advantages of male puberty? I must add the requisite disclaimer that sports is one of the few exceptions in which trans people do not have the “right” to be treated precisely as the sex they claim to be rather than the sex in which they were born. In nearly all other areas, trans people should be treated with dignity, respect, and have the same rights as everyone else. But of course even approving of a sports carve-out will get you labeled as a “transphobe.”
The fate of this bill in the Senate hasn’t been determined, but given the party makeup, I predict it will pass there, and, if so, Trump will sign it.
*Reader Bat informs us of a space launch today:
Just a heads up that Musk’s big Starship rocket is scheduled for a test flight today with a one-hour launch window opening at 5:00pm EST. (4PM CST at the Boca Chico TX launchsite). This permits a daylight launch and daylight landing of the starship vehicle in the Indian Ocean. They will again try to catch the spent booster in the “chopsticks” on the launch tower. Last time, damage to the tower during launch precluded a catch attempt. Hopefully, what they learned from that will help with this next launch. I do not think that there will be anything new of obvious note to us casual viewers…mainly hardware and software tweaks from what they learned with the previous test. They should cover the Starship re-entry and landing in the Indian Ocean from buoy-mounted cameras at the landing zone. I usually get my news updates and access to live coverage by trolling around the Space.com website.
He adds this:
In addition, it looks like Jess Bezos’ Blue Origin big rocket flight from the Cape has been delayed again to at least early tomorrow morning, but likely even later due to unfavorable seas in the booster recovery area. They want to land the spent booster upright on a barge in the ocean….as Musk has done before with his rockets.
Lazio has fired the man who handled the Italian soccer club’s eagle mascot after he posted photos and videos online of his own prosthetic penis.
Falconer Juan Bernabé shared the images on his private social media accounts after undergoing surgery for a penile implant, which he said was for non-medical reasons.
Bernabé also gave an interview to controversial Italian radio show La Zanzara on Monday and elaborated on his reasons for undergoing the procedure.
Bernabé added that he felt “very proud” and “more masculine” being part of Lazio. The Serie A club clearly did not feel the same as it fired the Spaniard shortly afterward.
“Shocked to see the photographic images and video of Mr. Juan Bernabè and to read the statements that accompanied them, Lazio announces that it has stopped, with immediate effect, all relationship with this person, given the seriousness of his behavior,” the capital club said in a statement.
The eagle — a bird that symbolizes ancient Rome — traditionally flies over Stadio Olimpico before home games.
Bernabè said he had no regrets about sharing the images.
Lazio suspended Bernabè in 2021 when he was filmed performing a fascist salute at the end of a match and chanting “Duce, Duce,” which was the name used to praise former fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini.
“I admire him so much,” Bernabè added in Monday’s radio interview.
What can one say but “Oy!”?
From Pyers, a temperature comparison:
From Nicole: a Facebook video of cats who have probably never seen snow:
Three Iranian operatives who planned to assassinate Masih in the U.S. are going on trial (long tweet):
These 11 individuals, charged by U.S. law enforcement, include members of the Revolutionary Guard, assassins, and facilitators of money laundering—all connected to efforts to kidnap and kill me on US soil. While the U.S. pursued a nuclear deal with Iran, these operatives worked… pic.twitter.com/Q6UVbjy3qn
Via Luana; yes, this is Rufo, but it’s also a video showing how universities circumvent the lie when it comes to race-based hiring. The dean should have kept his mouth shut.
I’ve seen this mountain, but not like this. Forgive the superfluous apostrophe:
In a wilderness where gale force winds & furious weather reign supreme, Patagonia's mount Cerro Torre is bathed in the warm light of the rising moon, while the stars reflect beautifully in it's still waters. #photography #travel #nature #bluesky #landscape #landscapephotography #naturephotography
