A great frustration for those who study natural history is that the sounds made by almost every extinct creature that ever lived will never be heard by human ears. The best we know of the call of the dodo, for instance, is that, perhaps, its name was an onomatopoeic allusion to a two-noted pigeon-like “cooo”. Likewise, the best we know of the great auk, a flightless penguin-like bird of the northern hemisphere, is that it may or may not have made a “gurgling noise when anxious”. My favourite of these extinct sounds is that of the Huia, a charming long-billed New Zealand bird which, although last seen in 1907, managed to stow its song into modernity because an elderly Maori man could remember the song from his childhood and recite it 50 years later, whistling it in front of audiences still saddened by its loss.
Thankfully this is unlikely to be the case should pandas ever face extinction, for in recent decades scientists have worked hard to record and study their vocal repertoire. As far as I can ascertain, this all started in the 1960s with a note in Men and Pandas, by Ramona and Desmond Morris, that when Chi-Chi (the zoo’s resident female panda) was in sexual heat “it was only necessary to open the den door when she was inside her sleeping quarters and hold a microphone towards her to produce repeated loud calling”. The book does not go into much detail about why this might be, bypassing the truly tragic possibility that Chi-Chi’s confused sexual tastes may have by this point included fluffy microphones and television zoologists. Still, the book was on to something, for many of the calls that pandas make did in fact turn out to be intimately linked to their reproductive cycles.
More recent studies, particularly in the last 10 years, have picked out a number of predictable noises that pandas can produce. In fact, they may be capable of more than 10 calls. Here are a few of the most common, should you ever find yourself face to face with one in the wild or, more likely, on the internet.
The first thing you should know about pandas is that they bleat. Yes, they bleat … although it isn’t a bleat like you or know it. It sounds rather like the kind of bleat that Jar Jar Binks would come out with, had the character’s dialogue been mercifully removed from the Star Wars films and replaced with bleating. In other words, the bleating is charismatic and expressive but a bit annoying after a short time. In human language, you could say that this bleating means “Hi, I am ready for sex,” if you were speaking to someone who literally could not understand the ways that animals work without imagining them to be like us.
Interestingly, it may be that the pitch and frequency of panda bleating seems to change in females according to their stage of oestrus. When reaching their most fertile stage (to continue the anthropocentric thread here) their bleating comes out capitalised. “I AM READY FOR SEX,” a female panda may be saying at these times. It’s worth noting that bleating is apparently used by pandas in other situations, like attracting the attention of babies or telling zookeepers you feel hungry. Desmond Morris had a get-out, in other words.
Another sound that pandas make is a kind of throaty honking noise, which is used during stressful situations. Then there’s a dog-like barking noise, interspersed with a long howling moan during the non-breeding season (which might mean “BACK OFF”). Then there’s the high-pitched and whining noise they make as the breeding season approaches. Then there are the “cuckoos” and “woo woos” and “creaks” about which scientists are still learning, and which may have something to do with bonding cubs with mothers.
If pandas ever do face extinction at least we will be able, through a library of recordings, to hold on to the suite of noises they make. At least our studies can continue should they leave. It was never that way for auks or dodos.
Yet there is a sting in the tail of this piece. Much of what we know about pandas is based on captive or semi-captive populations, and knowledge of their calls is no different. Do they make all these calls in the wild, where no observers are tracking them with microphones? Likewise, do captive pandas use their calls in the same way their ancestors once did? This is a beguiling thought, for what if the pandas are weaving us a story that doesn’t truly represent their historical skill-set? What if our scientific knowledge of their communications become based on unintentionally corrupted captive populations? What if we, like an audience in front of the whistling Maori man, are putting our trust in a wild song we may have long ago lost?
We may never know, of course, and so we must keep our minds open to the secrets that wild populations may have. For there, undoubtedly, pandas have more to tell us.
Jules Howard is a zoologist and the author of Sex on Earth and Death on Earth
