Researchers at the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, in San Diego, recently found that killer whales raised in captivity alongside bottlenose dolphins can learn their language.

Marine biologists studied three different orcas living in three separate water park enclosures and found the whales learned to modify their vocalizations to sound more like their dolphin companions. It's the first time interspecies vocal learning has been observed in toothed whales.

Killer whales generally use a strange repertoire of loud bursts and tones to communicate with each other. To the human ear, orca talk sounds like screaming. Dolphin speak is more familiar to humans, thanks to popular TV shows like Flipper; they use whistles and clicks to communicate. And for killer whales living among dolphins, many of those abrasive tones were traded in for whistles and clicks.

"There's been an idea for a long time that killer whales learn their dialect, but it isn't enough to say they all have different dialects so therefore they learn," Dr. Ann Bowles, a senior research scientist at the institute, said in a press release. "There needs to be some experimental proof so you can say how well they learn and what context promotes learning."

Bowles, along with University of San Diego graduate student Whitney Musser, led the study into orcas' adaptive vocals. Their study was published this week in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

"It's important to understand how they acquire [their vocalization patterns], and lifelong, to what degree they can change it, because there are a number of different populations on the decline right now," Bowles added. "And where killer whales go, we can expect other small whale species to go -- it's a broader question."

Researchers say that if killer whales can learn to adopt the language of dolphins, it might have implications for how wild populations behave -- opening up the possibility that killer whales might communicate and cooperate with other species.