Pet owners often recognize the sounds their dogs or cats make that convey distress, excitement, fear, and other emotions. Researchers in Copenhagen wanted to discover if the sounds pigs make also express emotion. They studied pig vocalizations, including grunts and squeals, to find out what they might mean. Listen to hear why researchers wanted to know more about pig communication, and learn how their findings could help pig farmers and consumers.
Story Length: 2:08
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November 4, 2021
2:22
Wild boars are roaming freely in the streets of Rome, Italy. These bristly members of the pig family have become a nuisance to residents, approaching them for food and causing sanitation and traffic problems. As their natural habitat shrinks, the intelligent beasts have been wandering down from the hills surrounding the city in increasing numbers. Listen to learn more about the problem of wild boar roaming Rome, and learn how the pandemic is offering clues for solving the problem.
Read MoreFebruary 13, 2018
4:11
You can tell a lot from a tiger’s roar. A researcher in Texas is using the sound of tigers’ vocalizations to track and protect them in national parks and in the wild around the world. By monitoring tigers acoustically, researchers can track their location and know whether a tiger is a male or female, its weight, and other characteristics. Listen to learn why this project is helping tigers in captivity and in the wild.
Read MoreDecember 23, 2015
7:18
Elephants roar and stomp and make loud sounds. They also make other sounds too low for humans to hear. Researchers are studying the secret signals of elephants by living among them in Africa. The audible calls are just a fraction of the elephants’ conversation. They have a longer ear canal, bigger eardrums and can hear much lower frequencies than people can. Researchers have matched the rumbling sounds with specific behaviors, such as looking for a baby elephant or greeting each other. Listen to hear more about the hidden language of elephants.
Read MoreDecember 22, 2015
7:18
Some animals and insects communicate at frequencies that humans can’t hear. Elephants and whales, for example, can find their families and mates using different frequencies. Crickets create vibrations that identify their species to other crickets, which helps to increase the cricket population. Sounds that people don’t pay attention to or sounds that people can’t even hear are all around us. Listen to this story to hear more about these sounds and how they have evolved to help animals survive.
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