In addition to influencing elephant responses, these kinds of associations also affected approach behaviors, with closely affiliated elephants tending to move toward each other during rumble exchanges. The elephants sometimes even appear to blow off detected rumbles. "It could be similar to when a person overhears another speaking," Leighty said. "They may not respond, but that doesn't mean it was not heard." Iain Douglas Hamilton, a leading authority on elephants and founder of the charity Save the Elephants, believes the paper, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Animal Behavior, represents "a significant advance in our understanding of elephant communication and a building block towards a wider understanding of how individuals interact to make group decisions." Hamilton was also interested to learn from the finding that the further apart two affiliated elephants were, the stronger their rumbles became. "This accords with what we see in the wild, that the longer individuals have been separated, the stronger the greeting ceremony when they come together, in which deep rumbling plays a significant role," he said. Leighty and her team are already planning future studies on elephant infrasonic vocalizations, such as investigating why elephants do or don't respond to a friend's rumblings. Related Links: |
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