Chimp & See Talk

Elephants & vocalization

  • ksigler by ksigler moderator

    When I first saw this clip, I thought the initial low rumbling vocalization was from the elephants. Later, it occurred to me that it sounds like some of the leopard vocalizations we've heard. However, I didn't think leopards were predators of elephants (healthy adults in a herd, anyway). Can someone confirm if the first sound in this clip is from the elephants, or not? Thanks!

    ACP0002o89

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  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    I would definitely say elephants but Nuria and Ammie will know better

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  • akalan by akalan scientist

    Hi all! It's true the first sound is a bit tricky, but elephant 'rumbles' are definitely a call they make and this website I found had some examples. Take a listen. I think it could indeed be coming from the eles.

    http://www.findsounds.com/ISAPI/search.dll?keywords=elephant

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  • ksigler by ksigler moderator in response to akalan's comment.

    Thanks for confirming, and for the link! On a related note, I was listening to the radio recently and there was a piece about the infrasounds that elephants make that are too low for us to hear without special equipment, but that create vibrations in the air. They played some of the enhanced recordings, and it was pretty interesting!

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  • Snorticus by Snorticus in response to ksigler's comment.

    Was it this? http://www.npr.org/2015/08/20/432616506/to-decode-elephant-conversation-you-must-feel-the-jungle-rumble Very cool low elephant sounds piece!

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  • ksigler by ksigler moderator in response to Snorticus's comment.

    Yes, that's the one! 😃

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  • NuriaM by NuriaM scientist, moderator

    Hi @ksigler !

    it definitely sounds like an elephant rumble to me... elephants use infrasonic vocalizations (as you said). Rumbles are low frequency sounds, confined partly or totally in the infrasonic range. Some of these infrasonic calls are high enough to be heard by humans (5-30 Hz -human´s lower limit is 20 Hz).

    The low frequency sounds travel farther than the high frequency ones, and this makes them perfect for long distance communication. They make these kind of calls in order to gather the group and coordinate the family (It would be the case of your video), when competing for resources and for mating purposes. It is known that females with youngs produce infrasounds more often than males,

    The first time that I could `feel´ an elephant infrasound was in a zoo...it was my first working day with elephants and it was very early in the morning. I enterered the elephant house and all the 2,13 elephants (2 males + 13 females!) were very calm in their boxes. I was watching them astonished by their impressive presence, when I suddenly felt like my body and the entire enclosure started somehow to vibrate. My workmate realized my shock, and asked me if I could feel it...he (an elephant expert, here @Pugli and at home my husband 😉 ) explained me what it was all about. I had never heard about this elephant´s awesome behaviour... It was an amazing situation, surrounded by elephants for the first time (and together with a lovely elephant keeper 😃 ).

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  • Pugli by Pugli scientist

    hi guys!

    I agree with all of you, it is very likely to be an elephant rumble. I feel anyway a bit curious about the fact that this rumble sounds so calm while the other elephants are so excited (but we can't tell much more from this video).

    A very interesting point to me about elephants vocalization in general is the capability of communicating with others up to 10 km distance (in cold and clear nights with an infrasound frequence speed of 319 m per second through the air). They can also communicate via seismic waves through the ground by using their feet with only 250 m/sec speed, but still reaching a distance of 32 km. It is also awesome that they can feel the seismic frequencies of a thunder 160 km away.

    But still there is much more to discover that we don't know yet about these impressive creatures.

    

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  • ksigler by ksigler moderator

    Aww, what a sweet story about you two and the elephants! 😄 It sounds like it would be an awesome experience to be around a bunch of elephants when they're doing that. Almost supernatural. What's also fascinating, I think, is how they figured all this out. At what point did one elephant say to another, "hey, I could hear you from farther away when you lowered your voice," or, "you don't have to stomp so hard, I'm only 20 km away!" The imagination can go wild here, but you know what I mean. Do elephants, or animals in general, communicate about communicating? There must be so much happening that we overlook, or aren't sensitive to...

    Also, in that same radio series this morning, they discussed the different warning calls that birds use for different situations (flying predator, perched predator, etc.). Different species of birds can use the same type of warning signal, and they found evidence of squirrels and chipmunks mimicking the birds to give the same warnings! That's incredible! I wonder if we've had that kind of cross-species interaction in our clips but didn't realize it.

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  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    I'm sure we have 😉 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/monkeys-can-hack-each-others-grammar-180955119/?no-ist

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