A problem with this set-up is the dead air you have to move. You may have seen characters in cartoons use a long tube to breathe underwater. But despite what some sources might say, giraffes do have a well developed larynx, which is located up at the head end of the neck. Part of the reason I'd never heard what a giraffe sounds like is that they usually don't make any sound. In any case, the up to 2.1 m long (as tall as Shaquille O'Neal) neck does have consequences for auditioning for Canadian Idol.
The most common explanation for the long neck (which has the same number of vertebrae as us) has to do with eating leaves beyond the reach of their competitors, although some have suggested they evolved as a way for males (which grow taller) to beat up other males and impress females. But what about real giraffes? I had no clue.Įven before looking into this further, I figured the renowned long neck of the giraffe must have something to do with what sounds it did or did not make. Melman in the Madagascar franchise has a nasal whine while the Friendly Giant's pal Jerome spoke with more of a baritone. The other day, my daughter wanted to know what sound they made. Original article on Live Science.Giraffe is my six-year-old's latest favourite stuffie. Follow Live Science, Facebook & Google+. 9 in the journal BMC Research Notes.įollow Laura Geggel on Twitter. Future work is "urgently needed because compared to other species, we know very little about giraffe communication and behavior in general," Stoeger said. The researchers recorded 65 humming episodes in all, indicating "that acoustic communication is rare," she said. This isn't unexpected, given that giraffes' vocal folds aren't as thick as those of elephants, "so it would be a surprise that the calls of giraffes would be even lower than those of elephants," Stoeger said. The team didn't find any evidence of low-frequency, infrasonic signals. "However, it might be possible that once vision is limited - for example, at nighttime - and they are separated, that they might use vocalizations to keep contact."
"Giraffes have excellent vision and use visual signals for communication a lot," she said. But Stoeger has a hunch the eerie sound is a method of communication - an idea that needs to be verified in future studies, she said. The researchers didn't take videos of the humming giraffes, so it's unclear exactly what the animals were doing at the time. Giraffes sometimes hum at night, a new study finds. Once the sun sets, some giraffes hum an eerie tune that sounds like a creaking ship, they found. Sometimes, the researchers personally recorded the giraffes, but they relied on autonomous recording devices for the longer night recordings. To investigate, the researchers recorded a total of 22 giraffes at three European zoos - the Berlin Tierpark, the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark and the Vienna Zoo. But there's inconclusive evidence for this idea, prompting Stoeger and her colleagues to start recording giraffes in an effort to learn more about the noises they make, and whether those noises are used for communication. Or maybe giraffes produce sounds in the infrasonic range - much like the rumble of elephants - that are below the threshold of human hearing, she said. "There have been suggestions that the giraffe's iconic long neck makes vocalization physically impossible, due to the difficulty of sustaining the required airflow from lungs to mouth over such a distance," Stoeger told Live Science in an email. The giraffe's neck may explain why the animal doesn't say much.
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