Sci Tech
Elephants Judge Human Voices for Threats
Elephants use human voice cues to determine not only ethnicity of humans, but also finer-scaled differences in gender and age
A study done by scientists at the University of Sussex suggests that wild elephants can determine if a human being poses a threat to their safety simply by listening to the person’s voice to determine its sex, age and ethnicity.
The study, sponsored by the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, studied how a herd of elephants in Kenya reacted to the sounds of human voices on tape. When the voices of male Maasai, an East African tribe that hunts elephants on a regular basis, were played to the herd, the elephants reacted immediately by getting into a protective position. These same defensive responses were not noticed by the researchers when the elephants heard the taped voices of female and younger Maasai, both considered non-threatening groups.
Scientists say that this is the first proof that elephants have the ability to distinguish among different voices, enabling them to judge whether or not there is an immediate threat to their safety from that particular voice.
“Recognizing predators and judging the level of threat they pose is a crucial skill for many wild animals,” Karen McComb, lead author of the study and a mammal communication expert, said in a news release. “Human predators present a particularly interesting challenge, as different groups of humans can represent dramatically different levels of danger to animals living around them.”
Researchers say they believe that animals living in the wild other than elephants may have also developed this same ability to hear certain voices and determine whether or not they need to take defensive action against the humans associated with that voice who are hunting them.
“The human language is rich in acoustic cues. The ability to distinguish between Maasai and Kamba men delivering the same phrase in their own language suggests that elephants can discriminate between different languages,” Shannon said. “This apparently quite sophisticated skill would have to be learned through development or through younger family members following the lead of the herd’s matriarch and other older females.”
On The Web:
Elephants can gauge threat from human voices, study finds
http://news.yahoo.com/elephants-gauge-threat-human-voices-study-finds-221635880.html