WEBVTT - Comedic Impressions of the Wild

0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.240
<v Speaker 1>Works dot com. Hey, you wasn't a stuff to blow

0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.320
<v Speaker 1>your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,

0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:21.520
<v Speaker 1>what's your impression of comedic impressionists? You know, the rich

0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.360
<v Speaker 1>Littles of the world who who apply their their comedic

0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.840
<v Speaker 1>trade by impersonating other celebrities. Do you want me to

0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:32.800
<v Speaker 1>do an impression of rich Little doing other comedians? Because

0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.919
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, because it's kind of like I imagine,

0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.400
<v Speaker 1>there is no rich Little like at the behind all

0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.680
<v Speaker 1>these these masks. There must be this void, and so

0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:43.920
<v Speaker 1>if you try to impersonate the void, it's the whole

0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.160
<v Speaker 1>universe implodes on itself. It's my impression of him. Well,

0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:51.000
<v Speaker 1>I love impressionists, particularly good ones, because I think it's

0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.279
<v Speaker 1>you know, one level is high hilarious, right, because you're

0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.840
<v Speaker 1>recognizing someone in a different context. But also the powers

0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.560
<v Speaker 1>of mimicry are just amazing to me, and some of

0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.160
<v Speaker 1>that rang true for me when we were talking about

0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.959
<v Speaker 1>um Vaudevillians and people working their dummies and the ventriloquists.

0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.200
<v Speaker 1>I mean that to me is a real skill. It

0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.440
<v Speaker 1>may not get you a lot of dates, but hey,

0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.080
<v Speaker 1>it's it's good stuff with me. I think it was

0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.760
<v Speaker 1>the movie The Trip with Steve Coogan in it, where

0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.160
<v Speaker 1>you have the two characters that have this very long

0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.160
<v Speaker 1>and uh and entertaining bit where they're they're they're having

0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:30.120
<v Speaker 1>these this duel of Michael Caine impersonations that is one,

0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.960
<v Speaker 1>hands down, one of the best film moments out there.

0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:36.679
<v Speaker 1>It is. It's it's pretty great because there they each

0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.840
<v Speaker 1>they're taking different Michael Kaine's from different periods of history,

0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:44.600
<v Speaker 1>different points, different films, and Michael Kaine's lifespan. They are

0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.720
<v Speaker 1>then they also have their own individual takes and preferences

0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.800
<v Speaker 1>when it comes to the Michael Caine impersonation and uh.

0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.120
<v Speaker 1>In a way, all of that nuance and all of

0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.520
<v Speaker 1>that variety in the impersonation of a specific thing ties

0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.280
<v Speaker 1>in nicely into what we're about to talk about in

0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.640
<v Speaker 1>this episode, because we're gonna focus on these comedic impressionists

0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:09.519
<v Speaker 1>in the wild and why animals might go into this territory,

0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.640
<v Speaker 1>why would they do it, how they do it, And

0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.960
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna cover some extreme mimics that you might not

0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.079
<v Speaker 1>have ever thought of as having this ability. Yeah, we're

0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.080
<v Speaker 1>gonna start with birds, which you know, you're probably aware

0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.400
<v Speaker 1>that birds use a little bit of mimicry in their

0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.560
<v Speaker 1>birds song. But then later on we're gonna get into

0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.960
<v Speaker 1>some other animals that may surprise you. They surprise me. Yeah,

0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:35.160
<v Speaker 1>and mockingbird's car alarms. That's gonna be probably zero surprise

0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.560
<v Speaker 1>to everybody, right, Yeah, the mocking bird is uh, it's

0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.280
<v Speaker 1>pretty great, really, and we're talking about a very ultimately

0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.360
<v Speaker 1>creative bird. The vast majority of songbirds out there they

0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.600
<v Speaker 1>learn and memorize their songs from a mentor you know,

0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.760
<v Speaker 1>they're the father bird or another singing male. But the

0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.799
<v Speaker 1>mocking bird takes their sounds from the environment around them.

0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:57.440
<v Speaker 1>So there they may take a little bit of a

0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.680
<v Speaker 1>bird song. Here they're listening to this bird and that

0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:04.160
<v Speaker 1>bird they're incorporating into their own unique song. Or indeed,

0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.560
<v Speaker 1>they're hearing the sound of frogs or a barking dog.

0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:13.119
<v Speaker 1>And uh, if there happens to be a a human

0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.600
<v Speaker 1>settlement nearby, well then that just opens the door to

0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.240
<v Speaker 1>a whole new world of artificial sounds to add to

0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.760
<v Speaker 1>their uh unique statement. I think mocking birds are actually

0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.360
<v Speaker 1>pretty formidable in terms of something to be feared, at

0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:27.480
<v Speaker 1>least for me, because not only will they mad dog

0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:29.960
<v Speaker 1>you you know, and try to swoop in, but they

0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.560
<v Speaker 1>can sit there and and mimic a car, alarm, or

0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.120
<v Speaker 1>cellphone or a dog. They're a little insane to me. Yeah.

0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.880
<v Speaker 1>We're reading this article from biotist Daniel Edelstein in an

0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.960
<v Speaker 1>article for Bay Nature, and he said, from one spring

0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.520
<v Speaker 1>to the next, an individual male mocking bird repeats a

0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.880
<v Speaker 1>minimum of thirty five to sixty three of his previously

0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.680
<v Speaker 1>heard song types, while at the same time adding more

0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.920
<v Speaker 1>songs to his delivery. As a result, his vocal repertoire

0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.600
<v Speaker 1>eventually grows to as many as two hundred at old age,

0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.600
<v Speaker 1>which is up to a year. She says, So one

0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:05.680
<v Speaker 1>reason for this would be reproductive fitness. Yeah, it comes

0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.520
<v Speaker 1>down what the what is the female mocking bird want?

0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.440
<v Speaker 1>She wants a male that has a really awesome song,

0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.000
<v Speaker 1>a really nice you know of a long song, a

0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:19.840
<v Speaker 1>complex song. And therefore it behooves the male mocking bird

0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.440
<v Speaker 1>to create such a song using any color, any pal

0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.760
<v Speaker 1>available to him. It's basically the bower bird scenario where

0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.800
<v Speaker 1>the bower bird creates this wonderful love nest out of

0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.000
<v Speaker 1>objects that it found finds. The mocking bird creates this

0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.919
<v Speaker 1>wonderful love song out of sounds that it encounters in

0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.600
<v Speaker 1>its environment, and it's scavenges from its environment right there,

0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.360
<v Speaker 1>Like if you if you meet with me, I've got

0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.560
<v Speaker 1>like two hundred songs of a juke box. That one

0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:48.760
<v Speaker 1>over there only fifty, right, So it becomes a more

0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:53.760
<v Speaker 1>appealing proposition for the female bird if that other bird

0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:55.760
<v Speaker 1>has the ability to pick up tunes to add to

0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.800
<v Speaker 1>its arsenal of vocal awe. So that's one reason. Now,

0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.719
<v Speaker 1>another reason that animals and nature might use it is deception,

0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.279
<v Speaker 1>of course, yes, and of course one of the classic

0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.679
<v Speaker 1>examples of this we we see we discussed this one before,

0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:11.719
<v Speaker 1>and this is not really a bird thing, but you

0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.760
<v Speaker 1>see a wild cat species in the Amazon. They want

0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.040
<v Speaker 1>to eat a delicious tamarin, those little bit of monkey creatures.

0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:24.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah tamarin. Yeah, they're so cute but so delicious. I understand, Uh,

0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:25.560
<v Speaker 1>you want you want to eat some of those? What

0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.120
<v Speaker 1>do you do? You start mimicking their sounds? Cats are

0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.440
<v Speaker 1>of course great mimics. They manipulate us humans. Uh, the

0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.520
<v Speaker 1>their they're they're mimicking of of of of a baby

0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.680
<v Speaker 1>crying basically with their with their mewing and uh, and

0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.120
<v Speaker 1>they're not above pretending to be a tamarin and it

0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:42.880
<v Speaker 1>means they get to eat a nice tamarin on the

0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.640
<v Speaker 1>other end of that song. Yeah. So when the cat

0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.479
<v Speaker 1>in mimics and monkeys call, the tamarins are then compelled

0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.680
<v Speaker 1>to come down from the trees and investigate what is this?

0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:56.359
<v Speaker 1>Call this my baby, um, and then boom that the

0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.479
<v Speaker 1>cat pounces. Bottom line. In order to do this. In

0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.680
<v Speaker 1>order who manipulate animals around you with sound, you have

0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.080
<v Speaker 1>to have a certain amount of vocal flexibility. Yeah, we

0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:10.640
<v Speaker 1>know that humans obviously have it. Bats, dolphins, we've seen this. Uh. Songbirds, though,

0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:15.159
<v Speaker 1>are the masters of this vocal flexibility, that is listening

0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.920
<v Speaker 1>to and learning vocal cues from your surroundings. And the

0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.880
<v Speaker 1>reason that songbirds are so good at this is that

0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.440
<v Speaker 1>they have something called the syrings and this is the

0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.599
<v Speaker 1>sound producing organ and it's sort of the equivalent to

0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.680
<v Speaker 1>the human soundbox, though instead of being just right above

0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.280
<v Speaker 1>the tricky as ours is, it is actually located at

0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:38.159
<v Speaker 1>the junction of the two bronchi or air tubes leading

0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.960
<v Speaker 1>to the lungs. Yeah, the surnx features membranes that vibrate

0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.640
<v Speaker 1>and generate sound waves when air from the lungs passes

0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.880
<v Speaker 1>over them. And you have muscles to control the details

0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.080
<v Speaker 1>of the song production in the bird. And so the

0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:55.120
<v Speaker 1>more elaborate than the muscles than the more elaborate the song. Yeah,

0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.039
<v Speaker 1>and it's amazing because think about it's sort of like

0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.279
<v Speaker 1>having an accordion tucked in right above yours able to

0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.200
<v Speaker 1>produce these these really nuanced sounds. Yeah, it's easy to

0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:06.720
<v Speaker 1>This is one of those things that it is easy

0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:08.600
<v Speaker 1>to take for granted as a human because we have

0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.760
<v Speaker 1>uh this uh, this vocal flexibility. We can create so

0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.320
<v Speaker 1>many sounds. We can not only sound like each other,

0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.120
<v Speaker 1>we can sound like we can sound like like various

0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.080
<v Speaker 1>other creatures in nature or man made devices. I mean,

0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.840
<v Speaker 1>we have all these books. What sound does the truck make? Room, room?

0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.440
<v Speaker 1>What sound does the cat make? Me? Now we're doing it.

0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:29.760
<v Speaker 1>It's it's amazing. We can do just about anything. Yeah,

0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.200
<v Speaker 1>Bobby mcpahirn, I was thinking about this, He's got to

0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:36.559
<v Speaker 1>have some of the highest vocal flexibility of any human around. Yeah,

0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:38.400
<v Speaker 1>if he was willing to, he could just he could

0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.120
<v Speaker 1>eat tamarins all day. Just call him in He would

0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.800
<v Speaker 1>be completely fine out in the wild would all right, Hey,

0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.080
<v Speaker 1>another another thing here that could be adaptive. All right,

0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:49.560
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna take a break and when we come back,

0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.280
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna get into some of the more extreme mimics

0:07:52.320 --> 0:08:02.720
<v Speaker 1>that we find in nature. Alright, we're back. You had

0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:08.560
<v Speaker 1>mentioned BBC's Life of Birds, which features a songbird called

0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.960
<v Speaker 1>the superb liar bird earlier bird. Yeah, we get a

0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:13.880
<v Speaker 1>great scene of that and Borrow stalking through the chi

0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.960
<v Speaker 1>um and uh and in stalking the liar bird, Yeah,

0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.360
<v Speaker 1>he is. He's actually in a dense forest in Australia,

0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:25.080
<v Speaker 1>and um, it's wonderful because he's able to narrate what

0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.280
<v Speaker 1>is going on with this lear bird, which is really

0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.280
<v Speaker 1>rolling out the big guns in terms of its vocal flexibility.

0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:37.760
<v Speaker 1>And you see this amazing mimicry going on of not

0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.400
<v Speaker 1>just the sounds it hears around us around it in nature,

0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.120
<v Speaker 1>but some of the human made sounds that it overhears. Yeah,

0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.840
<v Speaker 1>such as a camera shutter. Yeah, camera shutter that I

0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:53.480
<v Speaker 1>mean perfectly imitates the camera shutter obviously heard probably the

0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:57.920
<v Speaker 1>crew doing that a chainsaw, because he could hear construction

0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.640
<v Speaker 1>going on in the surrounding area, as is the human

0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:05.360
<v Speaker 1>habitats moved in on its own in a car alarm. Yes,

0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:11.280
<v Speaker 1>and twenty different species of birds. So I mean this

0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.720
<v Speaker 1>one is like the Fonzi of birds. Yeah. The librard

0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.760
<v Speaker 1>is either of two species of ground dwelling Australian bird.

0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.280
<v Speaker 1>And it's interesting that, in addition to having this immense

0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.520
<v Speaker 1>repertoire of sounds at this disposal, the male librard also

0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.840
<v Speaker 1>has a huge, beautiful fanning tail. So they're really the

0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.200
<v Speaker 1>full package. I think so too. That's why I say

0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.040
<v Speaker 1>fans of birds here. Um. Now, that would be somewhat expected,

0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.160
<v Speaker 1>But what I probably would not expect is an Asian

0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.640
<v Speaker 1>elephant able to mimic a human. Yes, this one really

0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.200
<v Speaker 1>surprised me. This is UH has to do with a

0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.200
<v Speaker 1>twenty two year old Asian elephant that lives in the Soul,

0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:50.560
<v Speaker 1>Korea zoo, and supposedly the elephant has learned to reproduce

0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:57.320
<v Speaker 1>five Korean words uh on hello, uh anga, sit down, no,

0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.160
<v Speaker 1>you will lie down, and good by placing uh. And

0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.760
<v Speaker 1>it does this by placing its trunk inside its mouth

0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.640
<v Speaker 1>to modulate sound, kind of like uh when you see

0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.560
<v Speaker 1>a trumpet player put their hand in in the in

0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:12.800
<v Speaker 1>the front of it, or when you see a French

0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.679
<v Speaker 1>horn player, where of course your your hand is always

0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.160
<v Speaker 1>uh in the bell of the horn. Yeah. And an

0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.800
<v Speaker 1>international team that's been studying the elephants says that this

0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.400
<v Speaker 1>is a holy novel method of vocal production and that

0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.800
<v Speaker 1>the trainers first noticed that the elephant was imitating them

0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:31.520
<v Speaker 1>in two thousand and four. And you know it's funny

0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.400
<v Speaker 1>is for years they probably said this elephant is imitating me,

0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.199
<v Speaker 1>I swear to you, and people probably it's spending a

0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.000
<v Speaker 1>little too much time around the elephant. But I love

0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.439
<v Speaker 1>this idea that this is this Not only is it

0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.640
<v Speaker 1>is it reproducing this sound and mimicking humans, but it's

0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.520
<v Speaker 1>doing so in this totally new way. For instance, I

0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:51.680
<v Speaker 1>don't think I've ever seen anything like this in a

0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:53.800
<v Speaker 1>like a science fiction but it sounds perfect. You know

0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.840
<v Speaker 1>that you'd have an alien species that communicates by sticking

0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:00.400
<v Speaker 1>a trunk into its mouth and and then mimicking you know,

0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.200
<v Speaker 1>human vocalizations well. And one of the things that they

0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:05.360
<v Speaker 1>think is important here are a key factor is that

0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.760
<v Speaker 1>it was separated from other elements at age five, very

0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.040
<v Speaker 1>early on, and then it was just surrounded by humans,

0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.720
<v Speaker 1>so so it inevitably reaches out. Yeah, I mean that

0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.480
<v Speaker 1>becomes essentially it's clan. And one of the other striking

0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.120
<v Speaker 1>things about this is that it wasn't being trained to

0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:25.400
<v Speaker 1>do it. This was holy came out of it, just

0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:30.640
<v Speaker 1>completely unprompted. Yeah. Now, key though, is that that whole

0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:34.199
<v Speaker 1>idea that it was was around humans, not around other elephants.

0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.000
<v Speaker 1>And we see kind of a similar theme in some

0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.240
<v Speaker 1>of these other animals who were going to discuss. The

0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.240
<v Speaker 1>next of which is a bluga whale, which I was

0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.640
<v Speaker 1>surprised they had anything to say at all and that

0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.319
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't really dirty, because I always find them to

0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.960
<v Speaker 1>be a particularly randy creature when I encounter them at

0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.040
<v Speaker 1>the aquarium. Those are the ones they're always showing off

0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.760
<v Speaker 1>their chunk, right yeah, um, which is they're wonderful and

0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.160
<v Speaker 1>I love to see them at our aquarium here in

0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.400
<v Speaker 1>Atlanta because they really do glide past the US and

0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.720
<v Speaker 1>they seemed to as though they were making contact with

0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.400
<v Speaker 1>your eye contact. Um. But yes, sometimes they can expose

0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.600
<v Speaker 1>themselves a bit. So let's go back to this is

0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:11.880
<v Speaker 1>when research is that the National Marine Mammal Foundation in

0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:16.160
<v Speaker 1>San Diego began to hear their bloga whale Knock saying

0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.040
<v Speaker 1>something that resembled out. And and what was interesting here

0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.200
<v Speaker 1>is that not only is it saying something that resembles out,

0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.320
<v Speaker 1>but it's it's speaking quote unquote uh and a lower

0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.559
<v Speaker 1>octave than it's actually than the octave it uses when

0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:33.200
<v Speaker 1>it's actually using its vocalizations. Yes. Eventually, Sam Ridgeway of

0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.920
<v Speaker 1>the U. S. Navy Marine Mammal Program at San Diego

0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:40.040
<v Speaker 1>recorded Knock and studied those vocalizations and came to that

0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:44.320
<v Speaker 1>conclusion that it was modulating its voice. And what you

0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:45.840
<v Speaker 1>would think is that it was doing that so that

0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.040
<v Speaker 1>it could be understood while it was mimicking. And what's

0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:51.080
<v Speaker 1>interesting about that too is that it would say that

0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.960
<v Speaker 1>when someone was in the tank with him out, get

0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.319
<v Speaker 1>out of here. Um. But Knock made the sounds by

0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.760
<v Speaker 1>inflating air sex to a high are pressure than he

0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:05.040
<v Speaker 1>did when he would make his normal whale vocalizations. Yeah,

0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.079
<v Speaker 1>I know that. The interesting thing here too is that

0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.240
<v Speaker 1>not later went on and died, but Knock actually stopped

0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.840
<v Speaker 1>doing this vocalization stunt, stopped saying out in the late

0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.760
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighties, and the researchers theorizes is because he reached

0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.840
<v Speaker 1>sexual maturity. So there's this You get this sense that

0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.880
<v Speaker 1>there's this this point for an animal in captivity where

0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.520
<v Speaker 1>it's if it's not if it's not surrounded by other

0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:31.520
<v Speaker 1>members of his own species, or if the in close

0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.680
<v Speaker 1>approximity to humans, there is this period of time in

0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.080
<v Speaker 1>which they reach out and try to communicate with the

0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.560
<v Speaker 1>nearest organisms. Yeah, and again this is a case where

0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.760
<v Speaker 1>it was spontaneous, so it is noteworthy for that. Yeah,

0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.080
<v Speaker 1>they weren't trying to teach the beluga to speak and

0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.679
<v Speaker 1>do tricks. It just emerged and then as quickly as

0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.200
<v Speaker 1>it emerged, it went away. Now, one of the more

0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:58.160
<v Speaker 1>astounding examples to me, I think, just because of the clips,

0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.160
<v Speaker 1>you guys have got to check this out is a

0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:05.959
<v Speaker 1>harbor steal. Uh. It was actually an orphaned harbor seal

0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.160
<v Speaker 1>pup in the Cundy Harbor in Maine, and George and

0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.240
<v Speaker 1>Alice Swallow I picked it up in nine and took

0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:15.120
<v Speaker 1>it home with them and tried to raise it. They

0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.400
<v Speaker 1>named it Hoover, but when Hoover got too big, the

0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.840
<v Speaker 1>Swallows gave Hoover to the New England Aquarium of Boston.

0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:28.880
<v Speaker 1>So George Swallow told the aquarium employees at the time, Hey,

0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:30.920
<v Speaker 1>the seal can talk, and of course they said, I'm

0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:33.960
<v Speaker 1>sure again, you're spending too much time with this animal.

0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.160
<v Speaker 1>But when Hoover reached sexual maturity, he actually began to

0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:43.120
<v Speaker 1>speak more clearly, okay, with interesting trend compared to the buluga. Yes,

0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.360
<v Speaker 1>And here's the part that's just so crazy. When you

0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:51.080
<v Speaker 1>hear the clip with a Boston accent. I popped the

0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.000
<v Speaker 1>cot hovid yad, so I don't think I can do

0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:55.960
<v Speaker 1>about an accent? Can you do about an accent? And

0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.840
<v Speaker 1>run through these different words and phrases that Hoover could.

0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.000
<v Speaker 1>I don't know that I'm gonna sound like a Southie,

0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:07.440
<v Speaker 1>but the seal would say, I there, how yeah, get

0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:11.600
<v Speaker 1>out of here, get down, get down, Get down the

0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.960
<v Speaker 1>seventies right, yeah, get down, get down. Yeah. So there

0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.880
<v Speaker 1>are actual clips that the New England Aquarium has, so

0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.360
<v Speaker 1>you guys can check that out. But it is amazing

0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:26.280
<v Speaker 1>because it's so odd. You can't help it anthropomorphize animals

0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.440
<v Speaker 1>who are mimicking mimicking humans in the first place, But

0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.840
<v Speaker 1>then to hear the Boston accent, it's just another level

0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:37.160
<v Speaker 1>of amazing nous Indeed, now for this, uh, this next entry,

0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:39.520
<v Speaker 1>our last entry here, I want you to think back

0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.680
<v Speaker 1>to those those Michael Caine impersonations we were talking about,

0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:46.760
<v Speaker 1>because we're about to talk about goats. And what's what's

0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.480
<v Speaker 1>interesting with goats is that they only produce a couple

0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.000
<v Speaker 1>of different calls. They're not a lot of there's no

0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.800
<v Speaker 1>goat song, you know, They're the only saying a few

0:15:55.880 --> 0:16:00.240
<v Speaker 1>different things. So the idea that they're they're bleed eating

0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:02.040
<v Speaker 1>them out with any kind of variety, with any kind

0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.600
<v Speaker 1>of vocal flexibility is pretty mind blowing. Who would expect

0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.600
<v Speaker 1>this of goats? And there here to be clear too,

0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.160
<v Speaker 1>because I'm sure everybody has seen the yelling goat clips

0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.360
<v Speaker 1>out there. The goats that sound like humans, They are

0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:18.240
<v Speaker 1>not mimicking humans in a sense. They just happen to sound,

0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.280
<v Speaker 1>you know, arguably like humans, but they do have accents

0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.880
<v Speaker 1>among their own groups. And I thought this was pretty fascinating. Yeah,

0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.600
<v Speaker 1>reading about this, uh the NPR Scott Simon interview with

0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:35.080
<v Speaker 1>Professor Allan McAllen got of Queen Mary University of London,

0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.000
<v Speaker 1>co author to study showing that goats voices change as

0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.960
<v Speaker 1>they move from different environments. The idea here is that

0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.320
<v Speaker 1>it's uh. It has to group identity. It has to

0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:47.600
<v Speaker 1>do with the the goats you you grew up with

0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:52.120
<v Speaker 1>and uh and and took on the vocal accents off. Yeah,

0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:56.280
<v Speaker 1>because they're really highly social species. And so if they

0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.440
<v Speaker 1>get separated during the day, which is sometimes do they

0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.000
<v Speaker 1>want to be able to find each other here each other,

0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.640
<v Speaker 1>So it would make sense that they would take on accents,

0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.960
<v Speaker 1>and that those accents could change too, if they change

0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.600
<v Speaker 1>over their environment and they change their surrounding goats that

0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.800
<v Speaker 1>they're dealing with. And it also kind of gives us

0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.640
<v Speaker 1>a hint about the beginnings of our own vocal flexibility

0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.479
<v Speaker 1>in humans exactly. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're not

0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.760
<v Speaker 1>saying that in in you know, X number of years

0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.000
<v Speaker 1>or x thousands of years in the future, the goats

0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.760
<v Speaker 1>will have language, but all language begins with some degree

0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.760
<v Speaker 1>of vocal flexibility. Making this sound and making this one.

0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.600
<v Speaker 1>This sound means this, this sound means that, and and uh.

0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.760
<v Speaker 1>And we've also looked at the way language develops in humans.

0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:41.520
<v Speaker 1>I mean, a child's babble is you know, the baby talk.

0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.960
<v Speaker 1>It's it's nonsense, but it's mimicry. It's a mimicry is

0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:49.480
<v Speaker 1>the early stages of acquiring language. So do you want

0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:54.440
<v Speaker 1>to have a Michael Kane off? Ah, let's I don't

0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.280
<v Speaker 1>know that my Michael Caine is very good. Actually, I

0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.679
<v Speaker 1>don't even look at each other. She little ear yo

0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.400
<v Speaker 1>maybe mourns a little bit later. Oh god, that's awful. Yeah,

0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.960
<v Speaker 1>I think mom, Michael Kane is maybe an earlier Michael Kane,

0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.159
<v Speaker 1>and it's really not very good. I used to be

0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.399
<v Speaker 1>able to do a pretty good Sean Connery, but I

0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:13.320
<v Speaker 1>had to have a chunk of apple in my mouth,

0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.160
<v Speaker 1>and it was a later day Sean Connery, perhaps after

0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.119
<v Speaker 1>he had dentures. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm gonna have

0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:22.159
<v Speaker 1>to work on my Michael Caine. Yeah, yeah, our our there, no,

0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.480
<v Speaker 1>my our mine is not good? All right. So there

0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:26.879
<v Speaker 1>you have it. A little inside of the world of

0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:31.480
<v Speaker 1>animals mimicking other animals, animals mimicking chainsaws, and oh and

0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:33.360
<v Speaker 1>in video games. That was one of the things about

0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.080
<v Speaker 1>the Liar Bird that I found that there are cases

0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.399
<v Speaker 1>where Liar Birds is imitating the gunshots in a video

0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.320
<v Speaker 1>game that it can hear um. And then you also

0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.280
<v Speaker 1>have animals that are mimicking us, and uh, and maybe

0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.080
<v Speaker 1>even the early stages of the goat language and then

0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.800
<v Speaker 1>humans mimicking other humans. Yes, so you want to learn

0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:52.879
<v Speaker 1>more about this and other topics you need to have

0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:54.680
<v Speaker 1>on over the Stuff to Go your mind dot com.

0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.560
<v Speaker 1>That is our our headquarters. That's the mothership. That's where

0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:00.000
<v Speaker 1>you'll find all of our podcasts. That's where you'll find

0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.040
<v Speaker 1>news on what we're up to. You'll find our blog posts,

0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.080
<v Speaker 1>you'll find out our videos. You'll find links to our

0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:09.120
<v Speaker 1>social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, tumbler, Uh, We're on YouTube,

0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.600
<v Speaker 1>We're on Google Plus. And you can always send us

0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.040
<v Speaker 1>the good old question email as well. How do they

0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:14.680
<v Speaker 1>do that? Do it? Ah? They can send it to

0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:20.760
<v Speaker 1>blow the Mind at Discovery dot com for more on

0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.240
<v Speaker 1>this and thousands of other topics. Does it How stuff

0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:30.640
<v Speaker 1>works dot com