Learning to speak elephant: Choruses of rumbles help groups coordinate

Choruses of African elephant rumbles appear to become more similar in certain situations, including reuniting or coordinating what to do next. Now, new research published in Scientific Reports provides evidence that elephant rumble choruses function as group signals.

African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) are highly social animals that often communicate using low-frequency rumbles, parts of which dip below the range of human hearing. Around 60% of rumbles occur in choruses involving two or more elephants producing overlapping vocalizations.

These choruses are particularly common during intense social interactions, including greeting ceremonies, but are difficult to study because the overlapping calls create an analytical challenge similar to the “cocktail party problem.”

Sara Keen and colleagues analyzed 902 recordings of single and chorused rumbles from 84 wild elephants across 39 families in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, collected during several periods between 1986 and 2022. Machine learning allowed the authors to listen to and analyze the chorus as a whole.

They examined rumbles associated with six different social contexts: Contact rumbles between separated elephants; Let’s-Go rumbles associated with attempts to initiate group movement; Cadenced rumbles exchanged during feeding, resting or slow movement, which may precede a different action; Coo rumbles from females to calves; Little-Greeting rumbles between closely bonded elephants; and Greeting rumbles produced when elephants reunite.

The researchers found that the behavioral context of both single and chorused rumbles could be predicted from their acoustic characteristics. Models trained using single rumbles could also predict the context of chorused rumbles, suggesting common context-specific acoustic features such as which frequencies carry the most power.

The researchers also found that elephants’ rumbles became more acoustically similar as Cadenced, Contact and Greeting exchanges unfolded. Since Cadenced and Contact exchanges often involve multiple elephants coordinating a shared plan of action, the authors suggest that this vocal convergence may help the group decide what to do next. However, they caution that the study did not include playback experiments to test how elephants respond to converging calls.

Who’s behind this story?

Gaby Clark

MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news.

Full profile →

Robert Egan

Bachelor’s in mathematical biology, Master’s in creative writing. Well-traveled with unique perspectives on science and language.

Full profile →