Filmed at the Criadouro Onca Pintada, a Jaguar Breeding facilility in Brazil that houses over 2,200 animals from 190 species, this strange bird has acquired some even stranger noises to show off to the park's guests.
The species looks to be a curl-crested jay (Cyanocorax cristatellus), a medium-sized, white and navy songbird native to South America. These birds typically form social groups of up to 12 individuals, and together they move about their territory in search of food sources, while keeping a collective eye out for predators. This communal living could explain the bird's incredible ability to form all kinds of sounds, which it uses to communicate predator warnings and courtship behaviours to its peers in the wild.
Unfortunately, there's no information given on how this particular bird came to imitate the sounds of a video game and some kind of terrifying robot asssassin, which was also the case when this video of a lyrebird perfectly imitating the sounds of a laser gun came out last year. Maybe these birds know something we don't. I'm too scared to think about what's actually going on here. #birdageddon
Here's that lyrebird putting its syrinx (the vocal organ in birds) to good use:
Native Australian lyrebirds have the most complex syrinxes of all the Passerines - a massive taxonomic order that contains half the world's species of birds. This gives them the most incredible capacity for mimicry, and they use this to show off to potential mates.
Not only can they perfectly mimic the sounds of other birds, but they can also mimic the sounds of other animals, such as koalas and dingoes, and other things in their environment, including cars, camera shutters, and yes, lasers, apparently.
Source: Digg