Scientists Finally Know What Sound a Giraffe Makes

In a new study published in the journal BioMed Central, researchers recorded over 940 hours of sounds from giraffes at three zoos over an eight-year period. And we’re not talking readings on a computer of subsonic rumblings too low for humans to hear-Stöger could actually hear a sort of humming coming from the giraffes at 92 Hz, just high enough to be heard by human ears.

Although giraffes are known to make sounds, it is not clearly established whether they use vocal means to exchange data or not.

The humming takes place at night because giraffes communicate visually during the day.

“Although giraffes do have a well-developed larynx and laryngeal nerves, it was long suggested that due to the long neck, giraffes might have problems to produce an air-flow of sufficient velocity to induce self-sustained vocal fold vibrations”.

“I was fascinated, because these signal have a very interesting sound and have a complex acoustic structure”, lead researcher Angela Stöger told Karl Gruber from New Scientist. “Notwithstanding, giraffes are, in principle, capable of producing sounds”.

You can hear their recordings below.

The researchers couldn’t prove that the sound is used for communication, but they have discovered “suggestive hints” that the hum could serve as a “contact call”, for instance to re-establish contact with herd mates. They admit it could just be something akin to snoring, but it may also be a way for giraffes to communicate in the dark when they can’t see each other. But further research will attempt to nut out the goal of the sound, and hopefully provide more insight into the social structure of giraffes.

But experts are still unsure as to whether the hums are a way of communicating with fellow giraffes.

She, however, picked up a weird humming coming from the giraffe enclosures in all three zoos at night. We couldn’t agree more.