The newest baby elephant at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park earlier this month. He is part of the African elephant herd whose language is being decoded by researchersTheir trumpeting is loud enough to rattle every snake in the jungle.
But it seems elephants have a secret quiet side too - at least to us humans.
Scientists are trying to decode a series of deep growl calls, much of which are inaudible to our ears.
Elephants are perfectly attuned to the low frequency jungle rumbles - and to the messages of love and lust they contain.
To learn more about the 'infrasonic' calls, researchers at San Diego Zoo attached collars with highly-sensitive microphones and a GPS tracking system to eight female elephants.
This allowed them to link the noises the animals were making to what they got up to. The team discovered heavily pregnant females growl to let the rest of the herd know they are about to go into labour.
It is thought the call primes the elephants to look out for predators - and to protect the newborn by encircling it.
Infrasonic calls also explain how elephants co- ordinate their behaviour over great distances - and are crucial for romance.
Several calf births have increased the San Diegno elephant herd's size to 13. Researchers found the animals communicate on a low frequency immediately before a birthDuring the brief time that a female is in season - a matter of four days every four years - she emits an infrasonic invitation for sex.
The call, which lasts a few seconds, can be heard by males more than two miles across the Savannah.
Elephants also use rumbles to make contact with other elephants.
Some matriarchs can identify up to 100 other creatures by the sound of their 'voice'.
The team, led by Dr Matt Anderson, decided to analyse these calls in an attempt to unravel what the animals were saying to each other.
They recorded the elephant's vocalisations for a 24-hour period each week for 10 weeks. This was then combined with observations of the elephants and GPS data to put the sounds in context.
Dr Anderson, who is the director of behavioural biology at the park, said: 'We thought elephants had a certain vocabulary, but we are finding it is much larger than anyone realised.'
He added that the information could help researchers create a more stress-free environment for elephants being bred in captivity.
The team plan to build up a catalogue of elephant sounds as part of the research.
source: dailymail
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