Why Do Elephants Have Trunks? Why Do Giraffes Have Purple Tongues?
But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids
Vermont Public
0.0 • 0 Ratings
🗓️ 1 February 2019
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We're exploring two different animals in today's episode. One has a long neck and the other has a long trunk! We'll answer: Why are elephants so big? How do their trunks work? Why do they have tusks? Why is elephant skin so rough? Do elephants stomp? Are they actually afraid of mice? And Why are elephants being poached? Peter Wrege of the Elephant Listening Project, which studies elephants in Central African Republic, answers elephant questions. And Steph Fennessy, from the Giraffe Conservation Foundation in Namibia, answers these questions about giraffes: Why do giraffes have long necks? Why do animals have different patterns, like zebras, giraffes, cheetah? What's a giraffe's usual life span? And why are their tongues purple?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is But Why a Podcast for Curious Kids from Vermont Public Radio. |
| 0:26.4 | I'm Jane Lenton. |
| 0:28.0 | In this podcast, we take questions from kids just like you all over the world and it's |
| 0:33.2 | our job to find answers. |
| 0:35.5 | In this episode, we're getting a close-up look at two different animals. |
| 0:40.4 | One has a long neck and the other has a long trunk. |
| 0:46.3 | That sound you're hearing is an elephant. |
| 0:48.6 | That's its trumpeting call. |
| 0:50.8 | Elephants make that noise by pushing air through their long trunk and it's loud. |
| 0:57.7 | Did you know that elephants can make low-frequency rumbling noises that are too low for humans |
| 1:03.1 | to hear? |
| 1:04.4 | But elephants can hear them from miles away. |
| 1:08.2 | Elephants make a lot of different kinds of noises from trumpets and rumbles to chirps |
| 1:12.5 | and growls. |
| 1:14.4 | But you had other questions for us about elephants, so we put them to a man named Peter |
| 1:19.1 | Reg. |
| 1:20.3 | He works with the Elephant Listening Project. |
| 1:22.8 | That's a group based at the Cornell Lab of Hornetology in New York State. |
| 1:26.8 | These researchers are looking into all those sounds I was just talking about by studying |
| 1:31.2 | African elephants. |
| 1:33.2 | But Peter knows a lot of other things about elephants too, so let's have him tackle |
| 1:36.8 | some of your questions. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vermont Public, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Vermont Public and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

