In this video, we see a man in Asia who clearly knows this group of elephants very well and he is calling them at a distance. They come almost immediately. As they approach him, he talks to them in their language. He places his hands around his mouth and exhales, creating a soft but fairly loud, rough blowing sound. It is clearly an elephant vocalisation which he has learned during what appears to have been a long association with them.
When the elephants are very close to him, they respond with exactly the same sound. This must be a greeting between elephants. This is followed by a deep rumbling sound by the elephants. This must also be a form of greeting response. Both must be friendly close call vocalisations.
Scientists have identified different low frequency elephant calls. One of them is the greeting rumble which they say is emitted by adult female members of a family group that have reunited after being separated for a while. It appears to me that this group contains some females who are employing this close contact call when communicating with the Asian man.
And elephants also make what the experts call ‘contact calls’ which are soft, unmodulated sounds. These are normally made when an individual has been separated from the group and they have a 2 km range.
They also emit a contact answer which is a response to a contact call. This starts out loud and then softens.
There is no doubt in my mind that the sound made by this Asian man which accurately replicates an elephant sound is a close-contact greeting which elicits a response from the elephants followed by a rumble. It appears to me that the rumble is a follow-up sound and one which indicates or signals contentment. It is a kind of unification or unifying sound.
It almost appears that it is something similar to the domestic cat purr but I am speculating highly because I am a lay person when it comes to elephant vocalisations and behaviour.
Elephants are highly social animals and use a variety of sounds to communicate with each other, including rumbling, trumpeting, snorting, and grunting. When greeting each other, elephants may emit low-frequency rumbles that can be heard from a distance. These rumbles can be used to convey information about an elephant’s identity, age, and emotional state.
In addition to vocalizations, elephants also use body language to communicate with each other. For example, they may use their trunks to touch each other or make gestures with their ears or tails. These behaviors can also be used to convey different messages and help elephants establish social bonds with one another.
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