Study
Infrasonic calls of the Asian elephant
Payne, Katharine B.; Langbauer, William R.; Thomas, Elizabeth M.
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 1986
Recorded elephants using equipment capable of capturing frequencies below the human hearing threshold, after observers repeatedly reported a "throbbing in the air" near the animals with no audible sound accompanying it.
- Studied in
- Elephas maximus
- Sample size
- captive Asian elephants recorded with infrasound-capable equipment
Elephants produce powerful calls with fundamental frequencies below about 20 hertz, at the edge of or below human hearing, and these calls accompany social behaviour that had appeared silent.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
A substantial part of elephant vocal communication takes place at frequencies humans cannot hear.
How NatureHQ reads it
The discovery is a good story and a better methodological lesson. The observers could feel the calls without hearing them, which is what prompted the recording; had nobody noticed the sensation, an entire communication channel would have stayed invisible because the instrument used to look for it was a human ear. Low frequencies also propagate much further than high ones through vegetation, which is why this is not merely a curiosity about pitch — it is what makes contact over kilometres possible.
- Captive animals in the original recordings; range and propagation were established by later fieldwork.
- Establishes production, not what receivers extract from these calls.
- The exact frequency boundary is a human convention, and elephants use a continuous range across it.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Feeling the ground
Elephant calls are low enough to travel through the ground as well as the air, and elephants given only the ground-borne version stop, turn towards it and lean forward.
Animal hearing
Low sounds carry much further than high ones through air, vegetation and water. That physical fact, more than anything about the animals, explains who communicates at long range and who does not.
Published by: Springer journalsPublished in a Springer journal.
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-02.