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The Forkhead Box P2 (FOXP2) transcription factor is the first gene discovered to be involved in the development of speech and language. Vocal learning has been classified as a form of operant learning (Skinner, 1957): first exploratory, highly variable actions are being initiated (i.e., babbling or subsong) and then sensory feedback shapes the initiation of future behaviour, reducing its variability (i.e., crystallised song, language). In what may appear at first to be a very superficial analogy, "mere homonyms, with at most a vague similarity of meaning" (Chomsky, 1959), operant self-learning in tethered flying Drosophila mimics these features of vocal learning: the animal first initiates highly variable, exploratory actions, then sensory feedback shapes the initiation of future behaviour, reducing its variability…