Why can parrots imitate human speech, but our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, cannot?
In: Biology
Many bird species can reproduce many kinds of sounds. Their sarynx can simply do more than our larynx. Some can even sing at a rate that our brains cannot differentiate the notes, and we have to use recording devices and waveform displays to see the change.
Parrots in particular, however, can imitate human speech so well because they also use their tongues in addition to the sarynx. This helps them reproduce sounds that are more similar to human speech as compared to other bird families.
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