A BELUGA whale has developed the amazing ability to speak in fluent cockney.

Staff at the California Marine Park discovered that Pluto – or ‘Big Frank’ as he prefers to be known – has learned to mimic not only human words but also gibberish East End slang expressions.

Marine biologist Tom Logan said: “When any of our staff approached Big Frank’s pen, they could hear a muffled but audible voice repeatedly asking ‘Where’s the Lillians, me old China?

“Eventually we worked out he was asking for fish. This is a remarkable scientific breakthrough but it’s fucking difficult to understand.

“What’s most baffling is that Big Frank frequently uses several words when one will do, such as ‘apples and pears’ for ‘stairs’, or ‘under the arches and over to Hampton’ when he simply means ‘plankton’.

“He has also demonstrated other cockney traits, such as leaping out of the water during feeding time in an exaggerated show of mateyness, and insisting on buying a massive round of fish.

“We did introduce a couple of porpoises to his pen for some company, but Frank refused to have anything to do with them and just swam around muttering ‘This used to be a nice area.’”

Logan said it was unclear how Frank had been exposed to cockney phrases, although it is believed that actor Danny Dyer spent several days at the park filming Danny Dyer’s Proper Mental Marine Mammals for Bravo.

Logan added: “We now believe it’s possible that whales have tried to communicate with humans before, but have failed because no one knows what the hell a ‘Moriarty’ or a ‘nifty’ is, much less a ‘Stamford Bridge’.

“We think that’s a fridge. Although it could be a ridge. Jesus.”