London, January 4 (ANI): In a new research, scientists are trying to compile the world's first elephant dictionary, by trying to decipher how elephants communicate in a complicated, sophisticated language.
According to a report in CBS News, the research is taking place in a remote clearing in Central Africa where forest elephants, the rarest, most mysterious, and most threatened member of the species congregate.
The research is led by an American scientist named Andrea Turkalo, who collects scientific data for Cornell University and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
She watches elephants almost every day, for hours, counting their numbers and monitoring their health and observing their social behavior.
Turkalo can recognize elephants by their voices, which researchers are trying to translate into what could someday become an elephant dictionary.
As to how large the dictionary might turn out to be, Turkalo said, "We have to really know a lot more about the behavior of these animals to sort of sort out these different vocalizations and what they mean."
Peter Wrege, a behavioral biologist from Cornell, said that the dictionary is still in its early stages.
"We're in kindergarten. We're just learning the very first few words. And Andrea, in a sense, is the person who, I feel, is going to help us put those words together," Wrege explained.
Scientists can match elephant sounds with behavior they can see, and classify those sounds into distinct categories.
Asked what some of them are, Turkalo said, "Well, there's low frequency rumbles. It sounds like a big cat purring. And those are the vocalizations that help keep groups in contact with each other."
"In newborns, you have a particularly very high cry. And when you hear it, you know it's a very, very young calf," she explained.
"And some of these big bulls, when they go into musth, which is this sexual state they make a special rumble which is very low and very pulsing," she added.
From the archive of elephant behavior and sound she created, Turkalo came to know that some noises that sound fearsome to human ears are actually elephants greeting one another.
"The base of their vocalization is infrasonic. In other words, the frequency on which their call is built is below what we can hear," Wrege explained.
The elephants use those low sounds to find one another in the dense forests where they spend most of their time.
"Elephants are using very low frequencies in their vocalizations which travel far," Wrege said. (ANI)
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