A tropical starling in a zoo in Wuhan, Hubei province, was removed from display after it started using obscene language, the Wuhan Evening News reported on Sunday.

The bird was put on display with three others in 2010 in the city's Jiufeng Forest Zoo because they had shown good capacity to learn human language. During the past two years the birds have spoken words such as hello, good fortune and goodbye, and even sang a song. However, one day the bird began speaking dirty words when it chatted with some visitors, surprising the breeders.

Li Yundi, one of the breeders, said that the bird might have learned the dirty words from some visitors and the zoo decided to keep the bird away to correct its speech.

The zoo also put up a notice reminding visitors not to use uncivilized words with the birds.