Researchers Studying Elephants for Clues to Hearing Impairment

Researchers studying elephants for clues to hearing impairment
By Scott Calvert, The Baltimore Sun
July 20, 2007

ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK, Namibia — The huge bull elephant nicknamed "Marlon Brando" loped over to the water hole, big ears flapping in the breeze. Soon he and four massive bull underlings indulged in a spirited bath that darkened their gray girth.

Buried in the sandy soil nearby, switched off at the moment, sat a device probably never before known in this remote stretch of southwest African wilderness: the same kind of ButtKicker subwoofer that gives many American home theaters their bone-rattling shake.

Here, the device has led to groundbreaking discoveries about how Brando and his kind communicate. Not only can elephants find meaning in calls that pulse through the ground as vibrations, says Stanford ecologist Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell, but a new study shows that they can tell whether the source is familiar or foreign.

It has been likened to a caller ID system and could have implications for humans. The benefits could one day include insights into hearing impairments and new ways to stop elephants from devouring the crops of subsistence farmers across Africa.

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