Nok: the beluga whale that spoke English (9 photos)

Imagine this situation. You've been working with the same animals for seven years. You're once again cleaning their cages and tidying up the equipment. Routine work. But while you're cleaning, one of the animals looks at you and repeatedly says, "Get out." What do you do?





Miles Braggett, an American scuba diver who works with beluga whales, obediently climbed out of the pool, for example. His brain was so incredulous that he completely ignored the beluga whale's strange behavior.



Bro, speak up! You're practically inaudible underwater; all that's coming out of your mouth are bubbles!

Miles left the pool, certain that one of his colleagues had called him. As you've probably guessed, no one had called him. It was just a beluga whale named Nok who suddenly wanted to talk.





Miles: Yeah, nothing unusual is happening.

Beluga whales are often called "sea canaries," and for good reason. These Arctic inhabitants have so many vocalizations that describing them on paper is nearly impossible. Beluga vocalizations range from standard squeals, moans, and creaks to monkey cries and seal purrs. And that's not to mention that they conduct a significant portion of their "communication" using ultrasound!



Beluga whales are gregarious and highly social creatures. Encountering a lone whale is possible, but rare.

But copying human speech is something fundamentally different. The beluga whale wasn't simply imitating sounds. The equipment showed that Nok was able to copy the frequency and acoustic spectrum of human speech. However, the beluga whale's vocal apparatus, for all its complexity, is incapable of reproducing human speech. Even the melon—the fatty lens above the whale's forehead that helps focus and modify the whale's sounds—couldn't help.



The little belly right on the face is that fatty lens.

To find out exactly how Nok speaks English, scientists had to perform a whole operation. First, they taught the beluga whale to speak on command. A little patience, plenty of tasty fish, and the subject was ready for the experiment. Then the researchers placed a pressure sensor in the beluga's nasal cavity. The animal, by the way, was unharmed. After all, the sensor is small, and an adult whale weighs between 1 and 2 tons and is 6 meters long. In the worst-case scenario, the animal experienced mild discomfort.



The belugas are going crazy for this bait.



A little about the size difference between humans and belugas.

It was then that it became clear that Nok had learned to use his vestibular sacs to go beyond the limits of a whale. Normally, these sacs help whales navigate and close off their windpipe to prevent water from entering. Nok was a master at manipulating his sacs to expand the range of sounds he could produce. Previously, it was believed that they operated purely instinctively, without brain control.



When he became so immersed in his body's understanding that he switched the automatic systems to manual mode.

But why did he do it? Apparently, purely for the sake of imitation. Nok didn't understand the meaning of what he was saying, but, unlike his comrades, he loved humans almost more than his own kind. He spent a lot of time with trainers and simply adored tactile contact. So he picked up all sorts of things from humans!



Many belugas are warm to people, especially those who spend a lot of time with them. But not this one in particular. People seem to irritate her.