Meet Ripper, The Duck That Parrots People

At least one species of duck, Australia’s remarkable musk duck, can AND DO mimic human vocalizations and other sounds from their environment — just as parrots can do

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Ripper was a hand-reared male Australian musk duck (Biziura lobata), who mimicked human utterances and other sounds that he learned from his environment. (Credit: Glenn Pure © 2018, with kind permission of Birdlife Australia)

“It started with an obscure reference about an Australian musk duck and ended in a nice paper,” said ethologist Carel ten Cate, a professor of animal…