Blog

For this week’s EleFact, we’re delving into some research done to suggest that male elephants use rumbles to signal to their bachelor herd that it’s time to leave where they are. A senior male or a highly socially integrated individual – often the most dominant – is likely the best candidate for this job, letting out a specific deep rumble; the others respond, seeming to suggest that they understand. The dominant male can take on a mentoring role within their loose herd, acting in a slightly matriarchal way. These bonds can be crucial to the survival of the group of males. 

This finding is significant because this behavior was previously believed to be engaged in only by female elephants in matriarchal groups. Male elephants have typically been assumed to have loose ties to one another, but they might have more communicative patterns that we’re only just learning about. 

The first signal for “let’s go” was recorded in 2004 and for the next 12 years, a research team studied these infrasonic vocalizations, which humans don’t have the ability to hear unaided by technology. What they found was a complex vocal system used in the same way that female elephants do. The scientists looked for specific patterns or properties which helped them map relationships and hierarchy within a bachelor group. They made note of which elephants initiated the “let’s go” rumble, how the other elephants in the area responded, and what happened that led to coordinated movements.

Male elephants may have learned this behavior from when they were young and living among a matriarchal group. Those communication patterns are likely just adapted to meet the needs of male elephants. According to one of the researchers, the initiator’s call is followed by one individual’s rumble, followed by other elephants rumbling in turn – each one waiting for the previous call to finish before making their own cry. He said, “If they are using noun-verb combinations together, that is syntax. That is language.”

You can read the research here: 

https://peerj.com/articles/17767/

Photo of Rana at sunset with some hay on her back