What Sound Does The Giraffe Make?

We all know what a lion sounds like when it roars, or a dog sounds like when it barks or a parrot sounds like when it squawks. Have you ever wondered what a giraffe sounds like? These magnificent long necked animals make a range of basic sounds such as snorts through their nose, but most people would be hard pressed to identify a giraffe from the sounds that it would make until now.

Changed some misconceptions

According to biologists who study this animal, giraffes actually hum. Previously scientists thought that the giraffe could not make any substantial sound because their long necks mean they could not generate sufficient airflows to produce vocalisations. Others have speculated that giraffes rely on low frequency sounds that are known as infrasonic sounds that humans are unable to perceive. Elephants use these frequencies for long range communication as do some other large animals.

No infrasonic communication

Angela Stoger of the University of Vienna in Austria reviewed over 1000 hours sound recordings at the different zoos in Europe. She found no evidence that giraffes were engaging in infrasonic communication however she did discover some strange humming coming from the enclosures as all three zoos during the night time.

“I was fascinated, because these signals have a very interesting sound and have a complex acoustic structure,” she says.

According to Ms. Stoger, the hum is a very low frequency sound at about 92 hertz. This means it is not infrasound and humans can hear it without the aid of any equipment. She adds that the hum contains a rich variation of notes and varies in duration.

How do giraffes communicate?

The research is important because for a long time many scientists have wondered how giraffes communicate given they have a socially structured system. Meredith Bashaw who also studies giraffes at the Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania says this new vocalisation could well provide some answers to questions that researcher have been asking for a long time. Ms. Bashaw says the humming could serve a number of purposes.

“It could be passively produced – like snoring – or produced during a dream-like state – like humans talking or dogs barking in their sleep,”

Identifying themselves in the dark

Another possible reason for the humming according to Ms. Bashaw is that the humming may be the way giraffes communicate with one another in the dark, when it is hard to see and serves as a greeting. Ms Stoger was unable to observe the giraffes whilst they were humming so it is not known what kind of behaviours are associated with the sounds. She does however say that in other species with similar social structure, vocalisations communicate information such as gender, ages, sexual arousal and reproductive states.