Beluga whale 'makes human-like sounds'

Researchers in the US have been shocked to discover a beluga whale whose vocalisations were remarkably close to human speech.

While dolphins have been taught to mimic the pattern and durations of sounds in human speech, no animal has spontaneously tried such mimicry.

But researchers heard a nine-year-old whale named NOC make sounds octaves below normal, in clipped bursts.

The researchers outline in Current Biology just how NOC did it.

The first mystery, though, was figuring out where the sound was coming from...

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