Bull bellows and bugles: a remarkable convergence of low and high-frequency vocalizations between male domestic cattle Bos taurus and the rutting calls of Siberian and North American wapiti

Abstract

Whereas low-frequency bellows (below 200 Hz) have been investigated in detail in both male and female domestic cattle (Bos taurus), male high-frequency bugle calls (over 800 Hz) have not been described so far in any large bovid species. In this study, high-frequency bugles and low-frequency bellows were recorded from three crossbred free-ranging domestic cattle bulls and analysed spectrographically. The maximum fundamental frequency of bellows was 113.6 Hz, whereas the maximum fundamental frequency of bugles was 958.4 Hz, ranging from 801 to 1125 Hz in different males. These amazingly high fundamental frequencies of bull bugles are comparable with those reported for Siberian wapiti Cervus elaphus sibiricus, but lower than reported values for some subspecies of North American wapiti Cervus canadensis. The similarity with both Siberian and North American wapiti was also observed in the production of bull biphonic bugles with two fundamental frequencies: the low and the high one. We suggest that bugles of domestic cattle bulls provide an excellent model for comparative research with cervid bugles concerning the mechanism of vocal production and the underlying anatomical and behavioural adaptations.

Keywords:

• Acoustic communication
• vocal emission
• biphonation
• free-ranging cattle
• red deer
• elk

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the owner, Christian Schmitt, for his courteous permission to work at the Okambara Ranch, Namibia, and Jörg Melzheimer, Ruben Portas and Vera Mendes, for their great help and support in the field. We are sincerely grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. During our work, we adhered to the “Guidelines for the treatment of animals in behavioural research and teaching” (Anim. Behav., 2006, 71, 245–253) and to the laws of Namibia, Germany, and the Russian Federation, the countries where the research was conducted.