By Rachel Yukimura

Scientists have recently discovered a new way elephants communicate: by stomping their feet.

Scientists studying both African and Asian elephants have recently discovered a secret language hidden from humanity, a language so complex that it may rival our own. In some respects, it undoubtedly surpasses ours. Perhaps our new-found knowledge will encourage us to respect the mighty pachyderms that we have treated so poorly in the past.

Though scientists have identified nearly 70 different elephant calls (Norlander 5) and often use these vocalizations to track the animals in the wild (Stone 1), some researchers have long suspected that elephants communicated using frequencies below the range of human perception (Ben-Ari 2). People who have spent time around elephants often report feeling as if the air were “throbbing,” even when there is no sound (2). “An elephant’s rumble is so powerful that you feel it hit you in your heart and lungs” (Norlander 5), one scientist explains.

In 1984, Katharine Payne, an acoustic biologist, set out to solve the mystery of the elephant’s rumble. She recorded elephant vocalizations and then played the tapes back at ten times the recording speed, raising the pitch by about 2.5 octaves. The results were astounding: “all kinds of sounds we hadn’t heard before were now present,” reported Payne (Ben-Ari 2). The animals’ vocalizations that scientists had been listening to for years were only the tip of an elephantine communication ice-berg.