Welcome to ElephantVoices

Visit The Elephant Ethogram - with over 3000 video clips, sounds and photos
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Learn more about why elephants are extraordinary
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Learn about the intricacies of the social life of elephants
Meet Dr. Joyce Poole, Co-Founder of ElephantVoices
How do elephants communicate? Sight, sound, scent, touch and vibration…
Visit the fascinating elephants in Gorongosa, Mozambique
Learn how to sex and identify African elephants
Meet Petter Granli, Co-Founder of ElephantVoices
Elephant needing your help? Find sound arguments in "Statements & Testimonies"

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#ThrowbackThursday - Two musth males (M13 & M22) battle for supremacy. True fights or “escalated contests” between male elephants may result in injury or death to a participant and males don’t enter into them lightly. Such fights typically occur between musth males of equal fighting ability (body condition and age/weight). Many of the signals given by musth males - dribbling of urine, temporal gland secretion and musth rumbling are intended to advertise a male’s testosterone levels and body condition and these help contestants to assess their rivals abilities. While males are likely to know one another individually and would therefore have a good idea of their body size relative to one another, body condition and testosterone fluctuate - sometimes dramatically. Assessing body condition is critical to avoid entering a fight that a male is likely to lose.

Education is one of the core pillars of our organization. While we created The Elephant Ethogram to advance the scientific understanding of elephant culture, behavior, and communication it has also become a vital educational resource. The continued broad interest in The Elephant Ethogram highlights the fascination the public has with elephant behavior and communication. If you haven’t visited The Elephant Ethogram give it a try! It is a unique and fully searchable online database that documents some 322 African elephant Behaviors and 103 Behavioral Constellations each with written descriptions, educational video clips from the wild (2400+ with detailed captions), audio with spectrograms (around 250 field recordings) and hundreds of photographs. The contents of The Elephant Ethogram have already been used as a basis for several studies and more are ongoing. In 2025, we’ll continue to sharing our knowledge and data with educational institutions and the media to reach a global audience. And we will continue to offer advice, sounds and images from our archives, to selected high-impact documentary films and educational and media institutions, to broaden interest in elephants and educate the public about their natural behavior and protection of their habitats. You can find out more about The Elephant Ethogram on our website via the link in our bio. #TheElephantEthogram #ElephantVoices #ElephantBehavior #ElephantCommunication

Noyeau has a newborn who is Suckling. All morning she has been followed around by a <2 year old female who has been Double-Suckling with the infant and also was earlier Suckling from Nabila, who herself does not have a <2 year old female. In this clip the <2 year old is hanging around Noyeau playing with a stick. As the infant starts Suckling she decides to have some too and walks around the back of Noyeau to get to her other breast. She Suckles briefly and then Social-Rubs against Noyeau's hind leg. This calf belongs to Nashipai so this is a case of Allo-Suckling. The behavior illustrated in this video is Allo-Suckling: A lactating female Suckling a calf who is not her offspring; a calf Suckling from a lactating female who is not his or her mother. Elephant ID: @amboseli_trust This short video from Amboseli, Kenya was filmed in 2020 and is part of The Elephant Ethogram: A Library of African Elephant Behavior. Visit the link in our bio to learn more.

Last night,@elephantvoices’ Joyce Poole spoke at the opening of ‘Still Life’, a hauntingly powerful and shocking photo exhibition by award-winning photojournalist @britta.jaschinski.photography, in support of @humaneworlduk’s campaign to ban the import of trophies from hunting, at London’s @mallgalleries. In her speech, Joyce said: “Hunters like to claim that elephant advocates use emotional arguments. They label us bunny huggers. After our Letter to Science was published, one hunter wrote on a hunting forum, “Where did these “Scientists“ graduate from? University of PETA? What did they major in? A Doctorate in Disney films?” Our 5 decades of scientific study, show that elephants are intelligent, long-lived, highly social animals capable of empathy, and complex communication including having names for one another. Their society is based on the wisdom of elders who are critical for leadership. Removing these individuals has consequences for the society as a whole and causes suffering. These are not emotional arguments, they are scientific facts. It is, actually, hunters whose arguments are based on emotion and self interest. Hunters dress their arguments up in conservation language, but the truth is that they get a kick out of pulling the trigger, taking a life and putting a body part on the wall. We need to put a stop to trophy hunting of endangered or threatened species and support a UK ban on the import of trophies.” Joyce is pictured here with @britta.jaschinski.photography, @peter.j.egan & @viscountessnoma. Visitors to the exhibition also had the opportunity to write messages to the UK government in support of the ban, which will be delivered to Parliament next month. If you are in London and want to check out the exhibition, it's open daily from April 8th to 12th, from 10 AM to 5 PM. Admission is free, and no booking is required. #BanTrophyHunting #StillLifeExhibition #EndTrophyHunting #WildlifeConservation

This year our research is focused on elephant communication and cognition. We will be working in collaboration with several scientists from a number of different institutions focusing on a variety of themes. Together we will be using linguistic techniques and machine learning tools to try further enhance our understanding of elephant vocal communication. And we will be trying to answer the questions: Do elephants point, and do elephants have a sense of humor, and how do we know? #ElephantVoices #ElephantBehavior

When @elephantvoices' Joyce Poole was just 11 years old, she attended a talk by Dr. Jane Goodall at the National Museums of Kenya. It was during this talk that she decided that she wanted to study animals, too. Years later, as she began her research, she recalled that moment of inspiration during an interview. Throughout Joyce’s lifelong dedication to the study of elephants, Dr. Jane has remained a source of inspiration. Today, in honor of Dr. Jane’s 91st birthday, we’re sharing this archival footage from the 1980s, when Joyce reflected on that pivotal presentation. Happy birthday, @janegoodallinst! Your unwavering dedication, boundless passion, and heroic commitment to wildlife conservation continues to inspire us all. #JaneGoodall91 #GoodallDay #Conservation #JoycePoole

A young male walks over to adult female, Valente, gf0013, who is Urinating. He wants to test her and one of her calves in blocking him. He gently Pushes the calf out of the way and reaches his Trunk-to-Genitals. The behavior illustrated in this video is Pushing: Pushing the head or base of trunk into the back, side, head or trunk of another to move it away or along or to assist it. Pushing comes in different forms and may be rough in aggressive contexts or very gentle in a situation where an elephant is attempting to help, herd or shepherd a family member. All age/sex groups may be observed to Push in an Aggressive context; while adult, adolescent and juvenile females may Push in a Calf Reassurance & Protection context; and adult females in a Movement Space & Leadership context. Social Play context Pushing is most likely to involve males of all ages. This short video from Gorongosa, Mozambique is part of The Elephant Ethogram: A Library of African Elephant Behavior. Visit the link in our bio to learn more. #theelephantethogram #elephantvoices #conservation #elephants

An elephant's life typically revolves around a family unit composed of several related females* and their offspring. A family may be as small as a mother and her calf or as large as 40 or more individuals, including great-grandmothers, their daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters, and immature sons. The oldest and largest adult female usually assumes the role of matriarch, a position crucial to the family's cohesion and survival. She often (though not always) determines the family's daily movements and makes critical decisions in times of danger or conflict. Her leadership can be subtle—she does not need to be at the front to guide the group, but when she stops, the entire family halts. In moments of crisis, family members pause, heads high and ears extended, attentively awaiting her decision. The bonds within the family center around her, and her death can lead to the family's fragmentation. *There are cases when families are composed of unrelated adult females - more on that later. #ElephantVoice #ElephantFamilies #Amboseli

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