What kind of noises do giraffes make

Is it sound or is it sounds? How many different sounds do giraffes make? Do they have a vocabulary? How do they communicate? Somebody has to know. Now, with audio evidence from researchers and first-hand knowledge from zookeepers and giraffe managers, we can finally attempt to answer that question.

Pixabay CC. All giraffes have vocal cords and make sound, but what sounds do they make? And what do those sounds mean? That depends on the age of the giraffe. Empirical and anecdotal evidence from zookeepers and giraffe managers supports that mature giraffes primarily snort and grunt, but a recent eight-year-long, three-zoo study recorded over hours of a third sound—humming—heard only at night.

Sometimes jokingly referred to as being similar to a husband's snore, this sound was described by a Wired article as being at the low-end level of human hearing at a frequency of about 92Hz.

This borders the frequencies often referred to as infra-sound. Check out the audio recording below! Recorded evidence suggests that as they mature, their vocabulary begins to consist primarily of infra-sound "whooshes" of air, or that nighttime "humming" discovered by researchers. However, young giraffes are a different matter. That same data collected from zookeepers attributes as many as 12 different sounds to young giraffes. Young giraffes make all types of sounds, including grunts, moans, snores, bellows, snorts, coughs, bleats, mews, hissing, whistle-like cries, and flute-like sounds.

Note: The inaudible giraffe sounds mentioned above, giant air whooshes , although observed to be communications - have yet to be correlated with specific meanings. A study published by BMC Research Notes found that giraffes primarily use infra-sound to communicate. The study did not address the empirical research that has concluded that it is the young giraffes that make the most sounds humans can hear.

Nor could they positively conclude that mature adult giraffe sounds are more limited in the sounds they make. Because giraffes are so quiet, it was wondered if they were making infrasound. Some animals, like elephants, use infrasound to communicate over long distances. So what about the giraffe? Giraffe hum at an average frequency of 92 Hertz, much higher than 20 Hertz.

But as that research was done at a zoo, there is still much unknown about what happens in the wild. More reading: Guide to All Giraffe Species. Learn more about other African animal sounds: Zebra , hyena , and gorilla sounds. Did you learn something new about giraffe noises? What did you find the most interesting?

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How Fast is a Zebra? To the casual human observer giraffes, whether in a zoo or in the wild, appear to be silent. Others however have suggested that, while clearly rare, giraffes do communicate vocally. Moreover, recent research has found that, contrary to the traditional view of giraffe herds as loose collections of non-bonded individuals, giraffes have a very structured social system based upon strong social bonds. Other species with this kind of social system such as elephants and buffalo are strong vocal communicators, which is thought to be crucial in maintaining group cohesion.

Clearly, resolving this question requires a more thorough investigation of giraffe vocalisations, one that systematically searches for audible patterns that might represent forms of communication. It is exactly such a project that Dr Stoeger and her team undertook in their research, the results of which are published today in BMC Research Notes. The hum isn't infrasound, but it's not exactly easy to hear either; Wired notes the researchers shared the vocalizations with zookeepers, and the sound was unfamiliar to them.

Though the researchers couldn't prove the sound is used for communication, they found "suggestive hints" that the hum might serves as a "contact call, for example, to re-establish contact with herd mates.

Giraffes are silently disappearing.