Duo

Duo is the official mascot of Duolingo. He is a male green owl of an unknown species and is meant to symbolize knowledge, wisdom and learning. In Duolingo it can at times serve as a coach to motivate users to achieve higher learning goals, and can also instruct users on several aspects of the Duolingo website.

In French Duo is a chouette,^[1] which is the barn owl. However, barn owls don't have aigrettes, the feathers over the head of many species of owl,^[2] and Duo has them.

Outfits

Duo wears several outfits in different occasions. He sometimes wears an academic gown, a coach Outfit, or a hat. You can buy outfits for Duo on the iOS or Android lingot store.

Meme Culture

Duo has recently been used in memes to depict the reminders to practice in a humorous way, mostly in the amount of emails users receive. Duo has been known to call in ballistic missile-strikes on people who do not practice^[3], or physically abuse them.^[4] The meme has become known as "Evil Duolingo Owl".^[5]

The official Duolingo YouTube channel posted a video titled "Introducing Duo Push" on April 1st, 2019, as a nod to the "Evil Duo" memes. In the video, a person dressed in Duo costume is shown stalking users who have not completed their daily lessons in order to "push" them toward their goals.^[6]

As part of the site's partnership with Angry Birds 2 in February 2020, Duo and the red Angry Bird were shown attacking people in a video. Duo arrived after discovering that one of the people at the bar hadn't done their French lessons.^[7] As part of that same partnership, Red also appeared alongside Duo inside of lessons.^[8]