Its plumage is black, it is barely larger than a mallard and has a large lobe under its beak.
But what would make the Barbed Duck a duck like no other would be its ability to reproduce sounds it has learned.
According to a study published Monday in the journal Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B, several male specimens of this species native to Australia have thus passed "pro" imitation.
Like a mynah, one of them even copied the human voice!
Until now, there has been evidence of vocal learning in mammals such as whales, bats and elephants. In birds, it has been noticed in parrots, of course, songbirds or in hummingbirds. But researchers have so far estimated that this specificity concerns only three of the 35 orders (categories of species grouping together families) of feathered beasts. It will now be necessary to include the ducks. Male barbed ducks show off their talent during courtship, according to the study.
The most striking example is that of Ripper.
Dressed for some reason with a frightening name ("ripper" in English), this duck raised in a nature reserve located 50 km from Canberra was more of an artist.
Once it reached adulthood, the duck was able to perfectly reproduce the slamming of a door located a few meters from where it had spent the first weeks of its life.
He could even imitate the human voice, according to another recording in which we hear him repeat a phrase similar to "You bloody fool" or "Your bloody food" ).
According to the study, "most likely" a "phrase he heard repeatedly from his guardian."
A curiosity forgotten in scientific literature
The review also details the sounds emitted by another duck who, having rubbed shoulders with Ripper, would have mimicked his door imitation. This same bird would also have reproduced the cackling of another species, the eyebrow duck. Through their research, the authors of the article learned that other ducks may have imitated the cough of a guard, the sniff of a pony or the squeal of a tourniquet. But unlike the other cases, these were not recorded.
How did the barbel duck join the list of learning species? It's an "obscure reference" in a book that caught the ear of the lead author of the article, professor of animal behavior at the Institute of Biology in Leiden, the Netherlands. "It was a remark that appeared in a chapter of a book written by Don Kroodsma, an American scientist who mentioned the fact that this species could be a vocal learner, without further information," Carel ten Cate specifies.
After further research, the researcher contacted an Australian archive service which had recordings, and then with the author of the same recordings. The oldest sounds provided by Peter Fullagar, an Australian ornithologist, co-author of the study, date from 1987. These are those of Ripper. “The recordings had never been described in detail. This is what we do in the article ”, underlines Carel ten Cate, who does not evoke a discovery but rather a“ rediscovery ”.
