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Do animals have accents?

Do animals have accents? Ellen Husain takes a look at the evidence

Published: February 22, 2023 at 5:18 pm

Yes animals do have accents. Plenty of animals have regional variations in their calls or songs. In Britain, differences have been recorded in the vocalisations of a variety of small birds, including chaffinches, coal tits and great tits, and yellowhammers, whose songs can have a different pitch and tone depending on where they live.

‘Cockney’ mallard ducks in London apparently have a harsher quack than those in Cornwall, perhaps an adaptation to being heard above the city hubbub. Farmers in south-west England have also reported a different ‘West Country’ moo among herds of cows.

Elsewhere, in the forests of southern Asia, singing gibbons have highly differentiated regional accents, and Africa’s rock hyraxes (guinea-pig-like relatives of elephants) have localised dialects, too. In the underwater world, different populations of sperm whales, orcas and humpbacks are known to incorporate unique phrases, or codas, into their songs.

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