Elephant Mutters

Posted on July 25, 2003 in Fact-Dropping

I learned that elephants speak in very low voices, lower than our hearing can discern, but audible to them at distances of up to four miles. Male elephants speak a different language from female elephants — at least the vocabulary that zoologists have learned thus far from listening to recordings of pachyderms muttering to themselves and holding conversations are distinctly different depending on whether you are eavesdropping on a male elephant or a female elephant.

Male elephants are most conversant when they enter a state known as the muskh: not the best time to attempt to carry on a conversation with one, especially if he’s an ancient bull because not only is he horny, but he rips down all the trees and vines, and stomps or gore anything that gets near him. Except, of course, for elephant cows.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of elephant speech as the topic for a poem or vingnette. So far, I’ve collected these facts.