Why Do Elephants Squeak? Kids Coloring Sheet

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Why Do Elephants Squeak?

Have you ever stood next to an elephant?

When I was fifteen, I visited an elephant park during a missions trip to Thailand. We got to walk right up to these massive creatures—and even pet them! I’ll never forget it.

Elephants are absolutely fascinating. Not only are they the largest land animals on Earth, but they also have some wild and wonderful features that show off God’s creativity—from their enormous feet to their floppy ears to their squirt-gun-like trunks!

In today’s adventure, we’re answering some BIG questions about elephants—like why do elephants squeak?

Here’s what we’ll discover:

• How is a baby elephant born?
• Why do elephants have trunks?
• Why do elephants squeak?
• And how can we tune our ears to hear God’s Spirit?

How Is a Baby Elephant Born?

Before we even get to the birth, something amazing happens: the baby elephant grows inside its mother for almost two full years! While a human pregnancy usually lasts around 9 months, an elephant mama is pregnant for about 22 months.

When she’s ready to give birth, the mother often finds a quiet spot, surrounded by her female herd members—called allomothers—who protect and support her. Isn’t that beautiful?

The baby elephant, or calf, usually weighs 220–250 pounds and is born while the mother is standing up. Sometimes the mother or allomothers will help the calf get up by nudging it or even giving it a little kick (gently, I promise!). This helps stimulate the baby and encourages it to stand and breathe.

The calf typically stands within a couple hours and starts nursing from its mother. And from that moment, the allomothers continue helping care for and protect the new baby.

Why Do Elephants Have Trunks?

An elephant’s trunk is a built-in multitool! It’s actually their nose, but it’s used for so much more than breathing.

Elephants use their trunks to:

• Smell (they can sniff out water 12 miles away!)
• Drink (they suck up water and spray it into their mouths)
• Pick up food
• Bathe and cool off
• Communicate with other elephants

Their trunks are made up of over 40,000 muscles (just the trunk!), which means they’re incredibly strong—even though they don’t contain any bones. These are called hydrostat muscles, a special type of fluid-filled muscle that gives structure and movement without bones. (Fun fact: your tongue has hydrostat muscles too!)

Why Do Elephants Squeak?

Most of us think of elephants making loud trumpeting noises, but they also rumble, bark, cry—and yes, they squeak!

Asian elephants are especially known for squeaking. Researchers believe these high-pitched sounds are a special way elephants communicate when they’re excited or sounding an alarm. And get this: they make that squeaky sound by buzzing their lips, like when a person plays a trumpet or trombone.

What’s even more fascinating is the frequency of the sounds elephants make. Sound frequency is all about how fast something vibrates to create sound. Fast vibrations = high-pitched sounds (like a bird’s chirp), and slow vibrations = low-pitched sounds (like a drum or lion’s roar).

Elephants can do both!

They squeak at ultrasonic frequencies—so high, humans can’t hear them. And they also rumble in infrasonic frequencies—so low, we can’t hear those either.

That means elephants are having conversations all around us that we’re completely missing!

And while most humans can sing in 2–3 octaves, elephants can communicate across seven octaves. That’s one impressive elephant choir!

How Can We Hear God’s Spirit?

Just like humans can’t hear all the sounds elephants make, not everyone hears God’s voice either.

In Matthew 13:15, Jesus talked about people who have ears but don’t really hear. Their hearts are stubborn, and they’ve closed their ears to God.

But the Bible also tells us that when we believe in Jesus and follow Him, we do hear His voice. John 10:27 says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

And when we have the Holy Spirit living in us, He even prays on our behalf using “wordless groans” (Romans 8:26). Isn’t that beautiful? Just like an elephant’s rumbles that we can’t hear, God’s Spirit is working and speaking in ways beyond what we can even understand.