Have you ever wondered: Why do elephants swing their trunks? What do they mean when they make noises? Well, pachyderms use many sounds and gestures to communicate with each other and now they have created the most complete ‘translator’ to decipher the language of elephants.
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Elephants have a great communicative language
They use a hundred gestures. Likewise, they have behaviors with communicative patterns. There is no doubt that they are intelligent animals, with a highly developed memory. This makes them have the capacity for a language.
For example, a couple of months ago the news of a A man used his piano to soothe abused elephants in Thailand. The animals heard the piano and reacted gratefully, with gestures equivalent to applause.
In addition, the keepers of these large mammals have learned some gestures and noises. Pachyderms certainly show that they are animals that try to communicate. In turn, humans must try to understand them.
They have designed a digital elephant ethogram
The creators of this method are Joyce Poole and her husband, Petter Granli. Poole is a German pachyderm researcher, born in 1965. She works hard in the s living in the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique.
Her work has led her to develop a very comprehensive ethogram. An ethogram is a compilation of gestures and sounds made by elephants. In this way, there is a database that allows interpreting these huge mammals.
The ethogram is influenced by values such as: the age of the animal, the context in which it is located, the breed and the sex. A compilation of up to 500 behaviors, with more than 3,000 videos, photos and audios. Result of many years of observation!
Many universities have shown interest in this ethogram. It’s great for studying elephants. It would be a way of understanding their intentions, the way they express themselves in different circumstances.
A “dictionary” of elephant behaviors, gestures and sounds
This is how we could define this ethogram. They derive from ethology, which is the study of the behaviors of living beings. A way to make comparisons between breeds, herds or families of different groups.
In the case of elephants, interesting studies have appeared in recent times. For example, in Australia a veterinarian helps elephants that stepped on explosive mines with prostheses. A way to replace their limbs.
The truth is that it is still in the experimental phase. It is expected to be able to incorporate the ethogram into a software or App, in order to immediately understand the elephants.
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Will we ever be able to understand the language of animals? Perhaps we can do it thanks to technology and the desire to understand other living beings.
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