For such a big animal, elephants have a surprisingly sensitive touch. Not only do they use their feet to “hear” calls from other herds, it now appears that how they respond depends on who’s calling.
Elephants use low-frequency vocalisations to communicate between herds up to several kilometres apart. These rumblings also generate seismic waves in the ground, and Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell of Stanford University Medical Center in California and her colleagues suspected these might play a role in communication.
The researchers recorded alarm calls in Namibia and Kenya made by elephants when lions were lurking nearby. When herds at Namibian watering…
