According to Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell of Stanford, the trumpeting of African elephants is literally loud enough to shake the ground, and they have vibration-sensitive cells in their feet. That allows them to communicate over 2-4 kilometer distances.
According to O’Connell-Rodwell’s talk at today’s UCLA Behavior, Evolution, and Culture lunch, close observation shows remarkably complex behavior patterns among elephants, some of them reflecting cultural transmission. Namibian elephants respond to one another’s warning calls (recorded and played back through the ground by scientists), but ignore warning calls from Kenyan elephants.
Amazing, no?
Text of O’Connell-Rodwell paper
BEC calendar with links to talks
