The Importance Of Elephant Communication

Not surprisingly, elephants are known for being more emotional and empathetic animals than the rest. According the three articles, “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, “Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk in a Cooperative Task”, and “Elephants Console Each Other” elephants understand when they need each other’s assistance. All two authors describe the studies of elephant behavior differently, but with a similar purpose.

Researchers studies have shown that it is possible for an animal to communicate. For example, a dog barks when it's hungry, wants water, or wants to play just like Kanzi a bonobo. In the article, “Speaking Bonobo” Paul Raffaele said, “Kanzi touched symbols for marshmallows and fire… Kanzi snapped twigs for a fire, lit them with matches and toasted the marshmallows on a stick.” So you see now that animals can communicate with humans by pointing at symbols. Also it says, “Kanzi can understand words that aren't a part of his keyboard vocabulary.” So when you talk to a animal it probably will understand you. On the other hand,

Animal behavior can often imitate our own. There is much to find out by looking at research on the linguistics of primates. In an experiment a chimp named Lana was able to learn a lot about human communication with the use of lexigrams. Lexigrams are symbols that correspond to words or ideas. They were invented by Duane Rumbaugh.The lexigram keyboard and synthesizer was a system that allowed Lana to communicate hundreds of terms to her human counterparts ("Can Animals Understand Human Language?" )

Emotions play an extremely important role in human mental life. Unlike the chimpanzee, human emotions are easier to read because of their physical responses such as tears in their eyes or their lips changing shape. In the same way as chimpanzees, humans use gestures to communicate with each other, yet they use words instead of sounds.

First of all, many owners adopt puppies; allowing both to create a stronger emotional connection. A study conducted by the University of Lincoln and the University of Sao Paulo proved that dogs can not only understand humans, but they can also read and understand their emotions (Jamieson). The dogs in the trial were shown several pictures of humans with varying expressions. When the voice over the speaker said a command, the dogs would listen to the tone of the human and face towards the picture that corresponded appropriately. For example, if the voice sounded excited, the dog would wag its tail and point its attention towards the smiling face. The reactions dogs have to these type of tests show that their emotional connections to humans come almost instinctively. It is because of this trait that most hospitals arrange programs in which animals help victims recover.

Can you imagine having a conversation with an animal? Well, some animals are capable of learning and using language. Psychologists are working with many types of animals to learn symbols and language.

The authors in “ Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, “Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk In a Cooperative Task”, and “Elephants Console Each Other” all propose different purposes on one main general idea; elephants are more complex in ‘human behaviour’ than previously believed . Along with purpose, the authors aim at different viewpoints that all relatively agree with the same general acquisition, again, ‘ human behavior’.

Most primates communicate through a lot of ways, one of them being vocalization. Vocalization in primates have a range of functions, but some vary in contexts. For example, vocalization between one primate and another primate can differ greatly from communication between one group and another group. Of all primates, the only species to have developed speech are humans. Another form of communication is the use of symbols and hand gestures. Although apes use symbols, this provides insight on their cognitive abilities. In particular, there have been various recent studies on nonhuman primates and how they show a high level of complexity in linguistics, which is similar to humans. We study primate communication and their behavior to get a better

The African Bush elephants are found in eastern and southern Africa. Some of the areas with the highest densities of the Bush elephant is: Tanzania, South African, Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The African Bush elephant is terrestrial. The Bush elephant usually live in the grasslands, semi-deserts and the bush lands. They also clear out forest and turn them into more of grassland, by knocking down the trees. The climate that the Bush elephant normally lives in is dry and hot. Their thin hairs and ears help them stay cool. Another way that they stay cool is that their hides become more permeable in the heat. Scientists has performed research on 13 elephants (African and Asian), they measure the release of heat and moisture. What they have found was that their skin opens up at air temperatures as low at 10°C to 12°C, this is what allows them to perspire. Elephants are different than most mammals, that sweats through glands connected to pores, elephants only have pores between their toes. Elephants do not sweat (Phillips, 1992). By all of the skin being permeable they lose more

Clive Wynne who is an expert animal psychology and university teacher isn’t sure about cross-species communication because we don’t know how other species show their gratitude. For example, dog lovers believe that dogs feel a sense of guilt with their tail and eyes. However, a study shows that dogs don’t feel a sense of guilt, just they miss something.

Monkeys are soulful animals they are intelligent, they are capable of displaying emotions and exhibit empathetic capabilities. Monkeys communicate using a variety of facial expressive, vocalizations and body postures, and gestures making them most suitable for Harlow’s study. As Harlow’s experiments discloses ‘soulful’ behaviour, the experiment reveals that culturally-determined soulful animal behaviour can be more than basic instinctual or reflective of immediate stimulus response it can be equally biologically or culturally determined, and conscious behaviour both animal and human can be influenced biologically or

One form of nonhuman primate communication that occurs in the wild is through noises (Zuberbuhler 6). Most primates have species specific sounds for certain situations (Zuberbuhler 6). For example, vervet monkeys have different alarm calls for different types of predators (Zuberbuhler 10). The listeners of these calls respond to each call differently, protecting themselves from specific predators (Zuberbuhler 10). This means that they are not just reacting to another monkey being scared, but they know what scared it based on the call the monkey makes. Specific calls therefore can be said to symbolize specific meanings (Zuberbuhler 10). However, it is not known whether or not this is intentional or if the monkeys are aware of this. While this would not necessarily be considered a language, it is one of their natural forms of communication. The human listeners and nonhuman listeners both interpret arbitrary noises to mean something specific (Zuberbuhler 11). However, a difference between human language and these primate calls is that humans learn their language socially (Zuberbuhler 11). There is no evidence to say that nonhuman primate calls or sounds are learned socially instead of instinctual (Zuberbuhler 11). In fact, there is some evidence to support the opposite. “Monkeys reared in social isolation produce basically all their species-typical call types from soon after birth”(Arbib 1054). This means that these species specific calls are not taught, but they know them

According to sources, after performing studies at the University of Sussex, Jennifer Wathan and Karen McComb made a breakthrough--readable horses. Frankly, multitudes of animals communicate to each other; more than none. Adversely, humans do not know and understand all of a horse’s movements that relate to their decision making process. Fortunately, these two university researchers have an answer: Use visual cues to read a horse's mood. Jennifer Wathan assessed that being decisive to cognition and emotion is a fundamental skill; even for animals. In relation to horses, their ears and eyes tell the tale.

Like human beings, animals also communicate among themselves through gestures and body movements. Monkeys always carry their

“We are experiencing what is likely to be the greatest percentage loss of elephants in history,” said Richard G. Ruggiero, an official with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Ney York Times; December 3, 2012). The poaching of elephants started in the late 1800’s and is still happening today. People are slaughtering these majestic animals for their ivory tusks. Ivory has been sold on the black market for millions of dollars. Before the start of ivory poaching there were millions of elephants in the world in both Africa and India, but today because of the hunting for ivory, there are barely any of these giants left in the wild. Throughout history Europeans have been moving in on central African states to make