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Giraffes use ‘humming’ sounds to communicate to each other.
It has been confirmed: giraffes make the cutest ‘humming’ sounds, according to scientists at the Vienna University. The news was published in the journal BioMed Central together with the explanatory scientific paper and the sound samples collected by the team of researchers.
Giraffes don’t usually come to our minds when we think of noisy animal species. Quite the opposite, the tall animals have long been regarded as some of the most silent species on Earth. Yet, our previous beliefs have been debunked by a new finding that investigators at the University in Vienna and the Berlin Tierpark have made.
It appears that giraffes make cute ‘humming’ sounds at night to communicate among them. 940 hours of sounds have been recorded along an eight-year period for the current experiment. At first, scientists did not notice any relevant sounds because they have used infrasonic recording systems.
When they replayed the recordings at the frequency of 92Hz, they have discovered very low ‘humming’ sounds that giraffes make at night. They could not say whether the sounds were passively or actively produced, so future researches will try to determine the purpose of these hums.
Several hypotheses have been, nonetheless, made. Angela Stoeger, the co-author of the study, has stated that the ‘humming’ sounds could allow giraffes to see at night when the vision is too low. They could, thus, use sounds to alert each other of possible dangers.
On the other hand, there is also the possibility that the sounds are passively made, much in the same way humans snore when sleeping. Stoger will continue to make investigations for additional information on the matter.
Biologists have been very pleased with the findings of the new study. They claim the research has helped scientists better understand giraffes and their social communications. This species is known to be very social because exemplars live in large groups.
Yet, researchers could not explain how giraffes communicate to one another because they usually appeared to be very silent. The discovery of the ‘humming’ sounds could finally explain giraffes’ social interaction.
Image source: www.animalcorner.co.uk
