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According to a paper published in Current Biology, a beluga whale named NOC (pronounced “no-see”) learned to mimic the pitch and rhythms of human conversation.[1] This is not easy for a beluga whale to do, so it could not have been an accident.
The embedded video doesn’t provide much audio of the whale. Better audio here:
[audio:https://www.merrilydancingape.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/NOC.mp3]To me, it sounds like how human conversation taking place above water must sound to a curious eavesdropper below the surface. A whale would not parse human conversation into distinct words or even into individual speakers. Whales are singers, not speakers. They would interpret the conversation as a single, flowing song.
So in this audio clip what is NOC trying to communicate to us?
My guess is he’s simply saying a friendly “Hello!”
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