Why Whinny

Why Whinny

Susan Allen
Susan Allen

 

Why Whinny
Little girls love to make the sound,  in fact some are quite adept at it and  we have all heard it....Whinnying just like a horse and just as each child  voice on the playground is unique and recognizable so are the sounds horses make, I’m Susan Allen inviting you to stay tuned for the results of a interesting new study from France.  Animal behaviorists  have studied dolphins, dogs and  elephant sounds but until last month there were no scientific publications on vocal communications among horses. Fresh from France and recently published in the September edition of Animal Cogitation comes new research on horse Whinnies. Until now it  was thought horses relied primarily on sight to identify and communicate in their complex social strata but sound plays a crucial identification role as well. In fact  researchers discovered that a horse can determine a host of information  just from another’s whinny even the sex, size and even weight of  the caller. The French group taped recording of horses calls and learned  that horses could also tell even from an ipod if the whinny came from a stranger or a buddy. Interesting,  but not really surprising was the fact mares and geldings have higher pitched whinnies then stallions who emit  low –pitched frequencies, while  younger or  subordinate stallions have higher pitched Whinnies as well. All horses can communicate quite clearly up to about a  sixth of a mile. And each horses’ unique whinny contains  three distinct parts  introduction, a climax and an end.  

 


 

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