Information content and acoustic structure of male African elephant social rumbles
Open accessAbstract
Until recently, the prevailing theory about male African elephants (Loxodonta africana) was that, once adult and sexually mature, males are solitary and targeted only at finding estrous females. While this is true during the state of ‘musth’ (a condition characterized by aggressive behavior and elevated androgen levels), ‘non-musth’ males exhibit a social system seemingly based on companionship, dominance and established hierarchies. Research on elephant vocal communication has so far focused on females and very little is known about the acoustic structure and the information content of male vocalizations. Using the source and filter theory approach, we analyzed social rumbles of 10 male African elephants. Our results reveal that male rumbles encode information about individuality and maturity (age and size), with formant frequencies and absolute fundamental frequency values having the most informative power. This first comprehensive study on male elephant vocalizations gives important indications on their potential functional relevance for male-male and male-female communication. Our results suggest that, similar to the highly social females, future research on male elephant vocal behavior will reveal a complex communication system in which social knowledge, companionship, hierarchy, reproductive competition and the need to communicate over long distances play key roles.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The overall formant frequency means are in agreement with those reported in [50].
“values which are in agreement with those reported in [50].”
From Rules of departure: Antiphony and personalized vocal spaces in wild male elephant group coordination (2024) · cites this paper as [50]
The Methods (Acoustic analyses) say the paper measured the first two formant frequencies, and the Results (Acoustic cues to maturity) discuss their role in distinguishing male elephant rumbles. The passages in our copy do not give overall mean formant frequencies, so the claimed agreement of means cannot be checked. (LLM, conf=0.74)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredTargeted studies on male elephants are illuminating a yet undiscovered aspect of their vocal repertoire.
“Targeted studies on male elephants however, are illuminating a yet undiscovered aspect of their vocal repertoire [48-50].”
From Rules of departure: Antiphony and personalized vocal spaces in wild male elephant group coordination (2024) · cites this paper as [50]
In [50], the authors reported acoustic cues in male L. Africana which hint to the identity of individuals, and using pDFA they achieved 55% accuracy when classifying by caller the rumbles of 10 male elephants.
“In [50] the authors reported on acoustic cues in male L. Africana which hint to the identity of individuals. By using pDFA (permutated Discriminant Function Analysis) they achieved 55% accuracy when classifying by caller the rumbles of 10 male elephants.”
From Rules of departure: Antiphony and personalized vocal spaces in wild male elephant group coordination (2024) · cites this paper as [50]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 64 · Cited by 47
Research works printed but not linked: 38
- Soltis J. Vocal communication in African elephants (Loxodonta africana). Zoo. Biol. 29, 192– 209 (2010). 19434672
- McComb K., Moss C., Sayialel S. & Baker L. Unusually extensive networks of vocal recognition in African elephants. Anim. Behav. 59, 1103– 1109 (2000). 10877888
- O’Connell-Rodwell C. E. et al. African elephants (Loxodonta africana) discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar conspecific seismic alarm calls. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 122, 832– 830 (2007). 17672633
- Soltis J., King L. E., Douglas-Hamilton I., Vollrath F. & Savage A. African elephant alarm calls distinguish between threats from humans and bees. PLoS ONE. org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0089403 (2014). PMC3935886 24586753
- McComb K., Shannon G., Sayialel K. N. & Moss C. Elephants can determine ethnicity, gender, and age from acoustic cues in human voices. PNAS. 111, 5433– 5438 (2014). 24616492 PMC3986134
- Stoeger-Horwath A. S., Stoeger S., Schwammer H. M. & Kratochvil H. Call repertoire of infant African elephants: first insights into the early vocal ontogeny. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 121, 3922– 3931 (2007). 17552738 PMC2866000
- Rasmussen H. B. Reproductive tactics in male African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana). (Oxford University Press, 2005).
- Moss C. J. Elephant memories. (University of Chicago Press, 1988).
- Fitch W. T. & Hauser M. D. Unpacking ‘honesty’: generating and extracting information from acoustic signals in Animal Communication (ed. Megala-Simmons A. & Popper A.) 65– 137 (Berlin Springer-Verlag, 2002).
- Fitch W. T. Production of Vocalizations in Mammals in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. (ed. Brown K.) 115– 121 (Oxford Elsevier) (2006).
- Casey C., Charrier I., Mathevon N. & Reichmuth C. Rival assessment among northern elephant seals: evidence of associative learning during male–male contests. R. Soc. open sci. 2, 150228 (2015). 26361553 PMC4555858
- Reby D. et al. Red deer stags use formants as assessment cues during intrasexual agonistic interactions. Proc. R. Soc. B, 272, 941– 947 (2005). PMC1564087 16024350
- Herbst C. T. et al. How low can you go - physical production mechanism of elephant infrasonic vocalization. Science 337, 595– 599 (2012). 22859490
- Stoeger A. S., Zeppelzauer M. & Baotic A. Age-group estimation in freeranging African elephants based on acoustic cues of low-frequency rumbles. Bioacoustics. 23, 231– 46 (2014). 25821348 PMC4373548
- Poole J. H. Behavioral contexts of elephant acoustic communication in The Amboseli Elephants: A long-term perspective on a long-lived mammal (Moss C. J., Croze H. J. & Lee P. C.) 125– 161 (University of Chicago Press, 2011).
- Stoeger A. S. et al. Visualizing sound emission of elephant vocalizations: evidence for two rumble production types. PLoS One 7, e48907 (2012). 23155427 PMC3498347
- King L. E., Soltis J., Douglas-Hamilton I. & Savage A. Bee threat elicits alarm call in African elephants. PLoS One 5, e10346 (2010). 20436682 PMC2859947
- Soltis P., Leighty K. A., Wesolek C. M. & Savage A. The expression of affect in African elephants (Loxodonta africana) rumble vocalizations. J. Com. p Psychol. 123, 222– 225 (2009). 19450029
- Soltis J., Blowers T. E. & Savage A. Measuring positive and negative affect in the voiced sounds of African elephants (Loxodonta africana). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 129, 1059– 66 (2011). 21361461
- Ohala J. J. An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica 41, 1– 16 (1984). 6204347
- Charlton B. D. et al. Cues to body size in the formant spacing of male koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) bellows: honesty in an exaggerated trait. J. Exp. Biol. 214, 3414– 3422 (2011). 21957105
- Fitch W. T. & Reby D. The descended larynx is not uniquely human. Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. Ser B. 268, 1669– 1675 (2001). PMC1088793 11506679
- Poole J. H. Signals and assessment in African elephants: evidence from playback experiments. Anim. Behav. 58, 185– 193 (1999). 10413556
- Sikes S. K. The natural history of the African elephant. (New York, American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc. 1971).
- Ganswindt A., Heistermann M. & Hodges K. Physical, Physiological, and Behavioral Correlates of Musth in Captive African Elephants (Loxodonta africana). Physiol. Biochem. Zool. 78, 505– 514 (2005). 15957105
- Puechmaille S. J. et al. Female Mate Choice Can Drive the Evolution of High Frequency Echolocation in Bats: A Case Study with Rhinolophus mehelyi. PLoS One 9, e103452 (2014). 25075972 PMC4116191
- Gray D. A. Female house crickets, Acheta domesticus, prefer the chirps of large males. Anim. Behav. 54, 1553– 1562 (1997). 9794780
- Charlton B. D., Reby D. & McComb K. Female red deer prefer roars of larger males. Biol. Letter. 3, 382– 385 (2007). PMC2390678 17550876
- Feinberg D. R. et al. Menstrual cycle, trait estrogen level, and masculinity preferences in the human voice. Hormon. Behav. 49, 215– 222 (2006). 16055126
- Stoeger A. S. & Manger P. 2014. Vocal learning in elephants: neural bases and adaptive context. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 28, 101– 107 (2014). 25062469 PMC4181794
- Tibbetts E. A. & Dale J. Individual recognition: It is good to be different. Trends. Ecol. Evol. 22, 529– 537 (2007). 17904686
- ASAB/ABS. Guidelines for the treatment of animals in behavioural research and teaching. Anim. Behav. 99, 1– 9 (2015). 10640387
- De Nys H. M. et al. Vaccination against GnRH may suppress aggressive behaviour and musth in African elephant (Loxodonta africana) bulls – a pilot study. Tydskr. S. Afr. vet. Ver. 81, 8– 15 (2010). 20649148
- Ganswindt A. et al. Endocrine correlates of musth and the impact of ecological and social factors in free-ranging African elephants (Loxodonta africana). Hormon. Behav. 57, 506– 514 (2010). 20188104
- Zeppelzauer M. & Stoeger A. Establishing the fundamentals for an elephant early warning and monitoring system. BMC Res. Notes. 8, 409 (2015). 26338528 PMC4558827
- Venables W. N. & Ripley B. D. Modern Applied Statistics with S. 4th edn. (Springer, 2002).
- Bachorowski J. A. & Owren M. J. Acoustic correlates of talker sex and individual talker identity are present in a short vowel segment produced in running speech. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 106, 1054– 1063 (1999). 10462810
- Favaro L., Gamba M., Alfieri C., Pessani D. & McElligott A. G. Vocal individuality cues in the African penguin (Spheniscus demersus): a source-filter theory approach. Sci. Rep. 5, 17255 (2015). 26602001 PMC4658557
- Authors
- Stoeger, A. S., & Baotic, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Vienna (AT)
- Corresponding author
- Stoeger, Angela S.
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2016-06-08
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 27585-27585
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4897791
- OpenAlex
- W2418992898
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 64
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 5
- FWCI
- 3.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Phaidra (Universität Wien) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- University of Pretoria
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Marine animal studies overview
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Keywords
- Loxodonta africana, male vocalizations, acoustic communication, formant frequencies, fundamental frequency, musth, social hierarchy, individuality
- MeSH terms
- Acoustics, Aggression, Animals, Elephants, Female, Male, Sexual Behavior, Animal, Sound Spectrography, Vocalization, Animal
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
