Read, Watch or Listen

A musician’s performance at Belgium’s Pairi Daiza sanctuary drew an unexpected audience: elephants stopped their activities, moved in sync toward the pink guitar, and formed a semicircle just feet away. The shared video sparked conversations about how elephants process sound. The article highlights their sensitivity to low-frequency vibrations through their feet, reports stronger responses to live instruments than recordings, and notes wider research on animals’ varied reactions to music, including experiments where elephants played instruments and produced patterns that audiences could not distinguish from human-composed pieces.

Prepared by Emily Rhodes and reviewed by editorial team.