![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HorseSoundApr262.png\")
<\/p>\nTurns out, horses are whistling<\/p>\n
The sounds of farm animals are someone of the first things we learn as kids.<\/p>\n
The cow goes \u201cMoo.\u201d The sheep goes \u201cBaa.\u201d \u00a0The pig goes \u201cOink.\u201d<\/p>\n
And yes \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 the horse goes \u201cNeighhhh.\u201d<\/p>\n
But did you know that within the horse\u2019s iconic sound lies a mystery that has perplexed scientists for years?<\/p>\n
Well, now scientists have uncovered the answer, and that answer may mean that horses are unique in the animal kingdom.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The horse\u2019s neigh includes both high- and low- pitched sounds, a feature that has intrigued scientists who study them. (Image credit: Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n
The mystery of the neigh<\/p>\n
The horse neigh \u2014 also called a whinny \u2014 is a sound they make when they\u2019re meeting a new friend, greeting an old one, or celebrating joyful moments like when it\u2019s time to eat.<\/p>\n
But something about it is peculiar.<\/p>\n
The sound includes both a low pitch \u00a0\u2014 (a grunt \u2014) and a high pitch \u2014 (a squeal \u2014) all at the same time.<\/p>\n
The low pitch part makes sense.<\/p>\n
For the most part, larger animals have larger voice boxes, meaning they commonly produce lower- pitched sounds.<\/p>\n
The low pitch, similar to when humans speak or sing, comes when air passes over bands of tissue in the voice box, causing them to vibrate and make noise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But how does an animal as big as a horse make a sound with a high pitch? That\u2019s been the mysterious part.<\/p>\n
Uncovering the horse\u2019s secrets<\/p>\n
In a new study published in the journal Current Biology in February, scientists took a dive into the horse\u2019s voice box to uncover the mystery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HorseSoundsApr261.png\")
<\/p>\n
Scientists used cameras to look at the voice boxes of horses to better understand how they make their neigh sound. (Image credit: Charlie Riedel\/The Associated Press)\u00a0<\/p>\n
They put small cameras into the nostrils of horses to see what was going on when they produced their sounds.<\/p>\n
They also conducted scans and blew air manually over the voice boxes of horse cadaveres.\u00a0
\u00a0
They found out that the high-pitch part of the neigh comes from a whistle.<\/p>\n
They saw that air was vibrating the tissues in the voice box while an area just above contracts, leaving a small area for the whistle to escape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This whistling, which happens in the voice box, is different from the whistling that we humans produce with our mouths.<\/p>\n
And it’s also a first \u2014 although small mammals like rats and mice are known to whistle in this way, horses are the first large mammals known to have the ability.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d never imagined that there was a whistling component. It\u2019s really interesting, and I can hear that now,\u201d Jenifer Nadeau, who studies horses at the University of Connecticut, told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
She was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n
The why behind the whistle<\/p>\n
Like everything observed in biology, we always ask why it came to be through the process of evolution.<\/p>\n
According to study author Elodie Mandel-Briefer with the University of Copenhagen, it could be a way of allowing horses to convey two things at once.<\/p>\n
She said she thinks using different pitches at once could help horses express a more complex range of feelings when socializing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can express emotions in these two dimensions,\u201d Mandel-Briefer told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Have more questions? \ufeffWant to tell us how we’re doing? Use the \u201csend us feedback\u201d link below. \u2b07\ufe0f\u2b07\ufe0f\u2b07\ufe0f<\/p>\n
With files from The Associated Press
TOP IMAGE CREDIT: Sue Ogrocki\/The Associated Press
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