Animal Sounds & Voices
What is animal communication?
Animal communication is how animals send each other information — with sounds, body language, movement or smell. A hen's cluck, a dog's play-bow and a bee's waggle dance are all messages with real meaning.
Tap an animal to hear their call.
Cow
"Mooo"
A long low moo often means 'where are you?' to a calf or a best friend.
Mother cows call their calves with a special low moo that works like a name.
Pig
"Oink oink"
Quick grunts mean 'I'm happy and busy', a squeal means 'help me'.
Pigs make more than twenty different sounds, and piglets learn their mum's voice.
Hen
"Buk buk ba-gawk"
The proud egg song says 'look what I did!'
Hens cluck to their chicks before they even hatch, and the chicks peep back.
Sheep
"Baaa"
Ewes and lambs baa to find each other in a big noisy flock.
Sheep recognise up to fifty faces and remember them for two years.
Goat
"Maaa"
Goats bleat to keep their family group together.
Goats call in a family accent — kids raised together sound alike.
Duck
"Quack quack"
A rolling quack often means 'follow me, this way'.
Ducklings follow the first caring voice they hear after hatching.
Dog
"Woof"
A bouncy bark with a wagging tail means 'play with me!'
Dogs understand our pointing finger — almost no other animal does.
Cat
"Meow"
Grown-up cats mostly meow at people, not at other cats.
A cat's purr vibrates at a speed that helps their own bones heal.
Humpback whale
"Whoooo-eee"
Whale songs travel for hundreds of kilometres through the sea.
Every humpback group sings the same song, and the song changes each year.
Elephant
"Pahroooo"
A trumpet can mean excitement — a deep rumble means 'I'm here, come closer'.
Elephants talk in rumbles so low that we feel them more than hear them.
Honeybee
"Bzzzzz"
Bees also dance to tell each other where the flowers are.
A bee's wings beat about two hundred times every second.
Owl
"Hoo hoo"
Owls hoot to say 'this is my patch of wood'.
Owl feathers have soft fringes, so their flight is almost silent.
These calls are gentle sounds made by your device, not recordings of real animals, so nothing here is loud or frightening. The read-aloud voice is your browser's own.
Questions about animal talk
- Do animals really talk to each other?
- Yes. Animals use calls, body language and smells to share real information — cows call their calves with a sound that works like a name, and bees dance to say where flowers are.
- Why does my cat meow at me but not at other cats?
- Adult cats mostly meow at humans. Kittens meow at their mothers, and cats keep doing it with people because it works — we come and help.