Elephant Talk: The Surprising Science of Elephant Communication

Downer, Ann

ISBN 10: 0761357661 ISBN 13: 9780761357667

Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books, 2011

Synopsis

On a hot day in the African savannah, a group of elephants searches for food. While foraging they often lose sight of one another. Yet at the end of the day, in one coordinated movement, the elephants suddenly regroup. This coordinated movement—and others like it—has puzzled scientists and caused them to question how elephants communicate with each other.

Since the 1990s, scientists have gathered significant data on elephant “talk.” Biologists have determined that elephants use a complex system of communication of at least ten distinct sounds, combined in many variations. Researchers are now asking: what do these sounds mean?

As scientists study the elephant sounds that humans can hear, they are also identifying ways elephants communicate through nonverbal behaviors and making sounds too low for human ears. Scientists have realized that elephants even receive messages by using their sensitive feet to feel vibrations in the ground. All of these discoveries are helping elephant researchers better understand elephant behavior.

But the elephant’s time as a wild animal is running out. Threatened by habitat loss and illegally hunted for their ivory tusks, elephants are on the brink of extinction. Will understanding elephant talk be the key to saving the species?

About this title

About the Author

Ann Downer was born in Virginia but spent part of her childhood in the Philippines and in Thailand, where she journeyed to Chiang Mai to see an elephant roundup for her twelfth birthday. She is the author of five fantasy novels for young readers and two previous books about science, including Spring Pool: The Ecology of Temporary Ponds. For many years she worked as a science editor at a university press. The best part of that job was getting to meet and work with a lot of scientists, but she also got to spend five minutes in a playpen with a litter of tiger cubs and kayak up the Susquehanna River with eighty arachnologists. More recently she has been looking for ways to combine her love of science and story through blogs, podcasts, and graphic novels. She lives outside Boston with her husband and son and one guinea pig.

Edition details

• Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761357661
• ISBN 13: 9780761357667
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 112