Elephants use Contact Calls to keep in audible contact with one another sometimes over long distances. In a sense an interchange of contact calls queries, "I am here, where are you?" and in answer, "I am over here". Contact calls typically contain a series of at least three calls: The querying rumble by the initial caller, an answer by a second individual and then a confirmation by the initial caller that the answer has been received(1). Other nearby family members may also add their voice to the second or third phase of the series.

Contact calls may be heard relatively frequently in the company of elephant family groups, particularly when a family has spread out over a large distance or when it has split into sub-groups. Contact calls are used primarily between family and bond group members, but on occasion elephants may be heard to answer the contact call of a non-family and non-bond-group elephant(2). In these cases the calling elephants seem to be members of the same clan(3).

Contact calls are one of the best studied of the calls made by savanna elephant(4). Contact calls can be among the most powerful solo (as opposed to chorused or clustered calls) low frequency calls made by elephants. Family members separated by one to two kilometers use contact calls at high sound pressure levels (measured at up to 103 dB at 5 m from the source) to stay in contact with one another(5). When individuals are closer together, however, they use the same call type at lower sound pressure levels(6). It has been estimated that elephants may be able to hear such powerful calls over an area of 300 km2 under certain atmospheric conditions(7), though information regarding individual identity probably does not travel more than around 2.5 km(8). Thus, while elephants may be able to identify a call as one made by a female over distances of up to 10 km, they are probably only able to use this call for the purposes of staying in touch with friends and relatives over distances of less than 2.5 km.

Adult females, juveniles and calves all use contact calls. As far as we are aware adult males do not contact call, but Joyce's guess is that they probably do when they have the need to, which is infrequently(9).

Contact calls are typically powerful, loud, throaty, medium-pitched rumbles that are relatively long in duration. Most contact calls last between 6-8 seconds and are modulated in frequency contour, typically rising sharply and then falling gradually. There does, however, exist a wide range of variation in the frequency contour of contact calls. Karen McComb and her colleagues(10) have shown that the contact calls of individuals are structurally distinct and audibly identifiable to other elephants. In other words contact calls contain an acoustic signature. It is possible that considerable additional information is contained in the different variations of the calls, perhaps related to their sequential arrangement (i.e. call, answer, confirmation), or to logistical or locational information or perhaps related to which individual an elephant is calling. Future research will answer some of these questions.

Contact calls are quite distinctive both in sound quality and in behavioral context, but they may on occasion be confused with the onset of a Greeting Sequence or Greeting Ceremony. Both the contact rumbles and greeting rumbles are loud modulated calls and contact calling sometimes precedes a greeting. In these cases it can be difficult to determine when the contact calling ends and greeting begins.

The spectrographic examples include a single call and a series. Note that these are on different time scales. The single call was one of a long series of calls given by Matriarch Echo on the 18 August 2000 as she conversed with her age-mate Ella and Ella's teenage daughter Emma who were some 200 meters distant.

The other spectrogram depicts a series of calls between a son, Eldon, and his mother, Eudora. Eldon, a four-year old, is separated from his mother by about 30 meters and calls to her rather softly (note that his call overlaps with another distant but unknown elephant). Eudora answers him and Eldon responds by calling loudly back to her to which Eudora responds again.