Do elephants really sing?

You may have leamt that the normal hearing range of humans is between 20 and 20,000 Hz. Meaning, we cannot hear sounds below 20 Hz or above 20,000 Hz. Which is why we’re missing out on listening to elephants “sing”. So, do elephants really “sing”? Come, let’s find out.

If you’ve listened to the loud trumpet of an elephant, it may be difficult for you to believe that these huge animals actually create sounds that fall below 20 Hz. But, yes, elephants do produce these low-frequency noises, called infrasounds. It has been over four decades since it was discovered that elephants created infrasounds. Though they are low-frequency sounds, infrasounds can be heard even about 10 km away, and play “an important role in elephants complex social life”. For instance, the female head of a group uses these infrasounds to guide other elephants, mothers use them to keep a check on their calves, and males-during the mating season- use it to wam other competitive males of their presence. Apparently, these infrasounds “are often accompanied by strong rumbles with slightly higher frequencies that people can hear. So, where does the question of “singing” come in?

Though infrasounds created by elephants were discovered decades ago, it was less than a decade ago that studies revealed how elephants created these sounds. To understand this, scientists used the larynx (the voice box) of a dead elephant and blew air through it. The result showed them that the principle was similar to how a human singer produced sound through the vibrating system in the larynx. This flow-induced vocal fold vibration offers a physiologically and evolutionarily efficient means to produce the very intense low-frequency sounds used in elephant long-distant communication”. So, while elephants aren’t really “singing”, to create infrasounds, they pretty much use the same mechanism that we humans use for singing.

Picture Credit : Google

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