Two or more related (usually adult) females engaging in a sequence of relatively flat, low-pitched, tonal rumbles of moderate intensity and long duration (~5-6 seconds) that have the cadence of a conversation, rising and falling, as first one individual and then another contributes her voice. Additional females may join the initiating individuals. This pattern of Rumbling is most often heard as a series of two or three slightly overlapping or closely adjacent calls followed by a pause before again calling. The interchange may last several minutes or up to an hour. The pattern of vocal exchange has such a cadence of conversation (in particular what sounds like a higher pitch/lower pitch exchanges by different individuals) that we refer to this as a Cadenced-Rumble.
Adult females appear to use Cadenced-Rumbling to ‘lend their voice’ to a proposed plan of action, usually, it seems, regarding where to go and when to depart. The calls that make up the ‘conversation’ are similar in structure to the ‘Let’s-Go’-Rumble, but, unlike the ‘Let’s-Go’, we have been unable to detect any particular axis of the body that would indicate directionality. In fact, the call is unusual in that the vocalizing females continue to feed (or whatever activity they were engaged in) without looking up or showing any particularly attentive behavior. We have heard elephants from four years of age and upwards (including juvenile, though not adult, males) participate, in such bouts of calling.
References: Poole 1996: 143, 144 [Discussion-Rumble]; Poole 2011. (Full reference list)
This behavior occurs in the following context(s): Movement, Space & Leadership