How far can heard of elephants communicate?

Question

What is the distance?

Answer 1

Generally, "elephants hear and respond to each other's loud calls from distances as great as four kilometres away"(Payne P.121). This under normal conditions would mean elephants can communicate and hear a message within a fifty+ square kilometres range. With David Larom and Michael Garstang´s work with long range calls and atmospheric conditions it was found that elephants have the capability of 9.8 kilometres away and within a 100 square kilometre range. At evenings in Africa the air temperature within 300 metres of the ground becomes inverted causing low-frequency sound to be reflected back to the ground instead of normally dissipating into the sky. Basically, around dusk elephants can communicate with each other over a much greater distance.

Katy Payne´s research has found that elephants do most of their calling in the late afternoon. This is a time when sound transmission is good but is not perfect. An easy explanation for not calling a lot during the night is obvious to anyone who has spent the night out in the African bush alone; the lions and many other predators are awake and hunting in the middle of the night and it would be foolish to draw unneeded attention to yourself. Thus, for its effectiveness wages against survival, elephants have found an ideal balance in maximizing this tool that they are so lucky to possess.