Elephants Can "Hear" with Their Feet.

Posted by Alex in Animal on June 2, 2007 at 5:51 pm


Stanford researcher Caitlin O’Connell discovered that elephants can hear with their feet:

She was supposed to find ways to keep elephants out of farmers’ fields. While observing them, she started to notice certain odd things.

"Normally, they would hold their big ears out like a parabola and scan back and forth," O’Connell said. "But to detect distant noise and vocalizations, they’d freeze and lean forward and put weight on their front legs. Sometimes they’d even lift up a front foot. All of them would do this at the same time — it was too coordinated to be a coincidence."

The behavior sometimes occurred when another herd approached or a ranger drove by in his vehicle.

"On a most fundamental level, the research is showing elephants have a whole modality for communicating that we haven’t thought about," O’Connell said.

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COMMENT

4 comments to "Elephants Can "Hear" with Their Feet."

  1. Miss Cellania
    June 2nd, 2007 at 5:58 pm

    It makes sense, considering how big their feet are, and an elephant's weight would keep them closely tuned to the ground for vibrations. Mother Nature knows her stuff!

  2. fluff
    June 3rd, 2007 at 8:34 am

    Allthemore it makes sense because the underside of their feet is pretty soft and sensible. But does it mean that if you want to get rid of elephants you have to stomp your feet on the ground; Just like with snakes? :)

  3. SwordBuddha
    June 3rd, 2007 at 12:08 pm

    Is this related at all to the well-documented ability of Republicans being able to talk out of their anuses?

    Probably not, but you have to ask these things when you're a buddha y'know.

  4. john
    June 4th, 2007 at 3:33 am

    this has been known for ages, she's just decided she's the one to take the credit


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