If you’re walking through the woods in parts of the United States or Canada and hear a bloodcurdling screech, a Ringwraith isn’t on your tail. It could be just a male elk in the mood. At over 700 pounds (318 kilograms), the North American elk is one of the biggest deer species alive today.
Larger animals tend to have larger voice boxes and longer vocal tracts, which produce lower sounds—it’s why elephants roar while mice squeak.
Despite their large size, though, male elk produce shrill rutting calls known as bugles. (Follow Yellowstone elk’s perilous journey in the latest issue of National Geographic.)
How elk make these distinctive sounds has puzzled scientists—especially since the bugles can reach pitches too high to be produced by the animals’ voice boxes.
“It sounds like a scream or shriek, or several animals vocalizing at the same time,” says David Reby of the United Kingdom’s University of Sussex and co-author of a new study on elk bugles.
“If I was in the forest at night and heard this sound without knowing what animal it was, I would probably feel terrified.” Continue reading – http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160420-elk-animals-science-sounds-wildlife/