The "earthquakes" created by elephants

2001/03/14 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia

We knew that bats use ultrasound, not perhaps as they use it, but they do. And we knew that elephants also use low-frequency ultrasound. But it is not that they produce small earthquakes to communicate. Well, saying earthquake can be much more, but it seems that they create and receive vibrations from the earth to know each other at a distance.

Ultrasounds are useful around 10 km, but ground vibrations generated with the legs serve to know what happens at a distance of 30 km. That's what researchers have discovered. It seems that females with offspring are the most responsive to these signals.

So far, three types of signals have been identified: the danger, the welcome and the third "come on" or something similar. However, it is still being researched and later we will know more details on the subject