Animal That Sounds Like a Baby Screaming

The wails coming from an enclosure at Taronga Zoo Sydney in Australia may sound like the cries of a man baby. But don't exist alarmed. It's merely a trickster resident: A brown, long-tailed bird named Repeat has learned how to mimic the shrieks and shrills of man babies.

Taronga Zoo Sydney posted a video of the impressive bird on Twitter on Aug. 30. "Bet you weren't expecting this wake-up call," the zoo tweeted. "You're not hearing things, our resident lyrebird Echo has the Amazing ability to replicate a variety of calls - including a baby's weep."

Repeat is a superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae), an Australian bird named for the shape of its tail during courting, according to Britannica . The tail looks like an instrument known as a lyre — a U-shaped stringed instrument that was popular in ancient Greece.

Lyrebirds are experts at mimicry; they can copy just nearly any sound in their firsthand environs, including those from chainsaws and auto engines, also as animal sounds, such every bit dog barks and bird calls, according to the Australian Museum .

Bet you weren't expecting this wake-up call! Yous're not hearing things, our resident lyrebird Echo has the Amazing ability to replicate a variety of calls - including a baby'southward cry! 📽️ via keeper Sam #forthewild #tarongatv #animalantics moving-picture show.twitter.com/RyU4XpABosBaronial 30, 2022

Vii-yr-sometime Repeat holds true to his name; he can mimic the sound of a power drill, a fire alarm and the "evacuate now" proclamation at the zoo, Leanne Golebiowski, the unit supervisor of birds at Taronga Zoo Sydney, told The Guardian .

Well-nigh a year ago, Echo started practicing snippets of baby cries, she said. But information technology's not clear how he perfected the calls, as the zoo is closed to visitors because of COVID-19 lockdowns in Sydney. "I can only assume that he picked information technology upwardly from our guests," Glebiowski said. "Plain he has been working on his arts and crafts during lockdown. But this concerns me, as I idea the zoo was a happy place for families to visit!"

Male lyrebirds use their mimicking talents mainly for courting, according to the National Audubon Society . During their convenance flavour, from June to August, male lyrebirds can exist heard singing for up to 4 hours a twenty-four hours. Their songs consist of a conglomeration of dissimilar bird calls that they have picked upwardly from their surroundings. But sometimes, their mating songs contain other, nonbird sounds.

Famed naturalist David Attenborough, in his 1998 series "The Life of Birds," presented a lyrebird that was mimicking the sounds of a camera, a motorcar alarm and foresters using concatenation saws. (You tin spotter the snippet here .)

Lyrebirds' impressive talents make them talented con artists. Recently, Cornell University researchers found that superb lyrebirds can mimic the sounds of not only other birds just also groups of birds that have flocked together as if in danger from a nearby predator, according to a Cornell statement about the findings of a report published Feb. 25 in the journal Current Biology .

"The male superb lyrebird creates a remarkable acoustic illusion," lead author Anastasia Dalziell, now at the University of Wollongong in Commonwealth of australia, said in the statement. The male person lyrebirds only do this during mating or when the female person breaks off the courtship, according to the report. The point is likely to create the illusion that there's danger elsewhere and that the female should stay with him, co-ordinate to the argument.

Female lyrebirds likewise have the ability to mimic sounds, but they probable do it for other reasons, such as defense, according to The Guardian.

Originally published on Live Science.

Scott Takelp