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Giraffes Responded More Strongly to Lion Calls Than Oxpecker Alarms

Southern giraffe with a red-billed oxpecker perched on its head in Kruger National Park
Research · Behaviour

Playback experiments with 35 free-ranging adult southern giraffes (Giraffa giraffa) showed that the animals responded to both lion (Panthera leo) vocalisations and alarm calls from red-billed oxpeckers (Buphagus erythrorhynchus), but lion calls consistently produced stronger vigilance. The study was published on 20 August 2026 in Behavioral Ecology.

Fieldwork took place from July to September 2024 at Lapalala Wilderness in Limpopo, South Africa. The researchers tested 19 males and 16 females to examine how giraffes weigh different sources of information about danger. Lion vocalisations represented a direct predator-associated cue, while oxpecker alarm calls provided an indirect warning from another species. The two sounds were presented in different orders within sequential playback trials, with ring-necked dove calls used as a non-alarm control.

Lion Calls Triggered the Strongest Response

Giraffes showed clearly stronger vigilance responses to both lion and oxpecker calls than to the control calls. Lion vocalisations nevertheless produced the strongest response regardless of whether they were played first or later in a sequence. Giraffes also rapidly interrupted feeding after both lion and oxpecker playbacks, but the oxpecker responses were generally weaker and more variable.

The order of the sounds had comparatively little influence on the overall pattern. Previous exposure to one playback did not erase the distinction between the two risk cues: giraffes continued to respond more strongly to lion vocalisations than to oxpecker alarms. The author interprets this as evidence that giraffes give greater behavioural weight to direct predator-associated information than to indirect alarm information from another species.

Females Were More Vigilant Overall

Females generally showed stronger vigilance than males across the playback conditions. However, the study found no support for males and females ranking the different sounds differently: both sexes showed the same broad pattern, even though females tended to respond more strongly overall.

The results build on earlier work showing that giraffes can use oxpecker alarm calls as information about danger. The new experiments show that these warnings are not treated as equivalent to direct predator-associated vocalisations: giraffes respond to both sources of information but distinguish between them when deciding how strongly to react.

Sources and image credit

  1. Baotic (2026), Behavioral Ecology — Differential weighting of lion vocalizations and oxpecker alarm calls in giraffesPrimary peer-reviewed open-access study, published 20 August 2026. Sequential playback experiments with free-ranging, predator-experienced southern giraffes compared lion vocalisations, red-billed oxpecker alarm calls and non-alarm control calls. Lion vocalisations consistently elicited the strongest vigilance; oxpecker alarms also increased vigilance but produced weaker and more variable responses. Females generally showed stronger vigilance than males, while playback order had limited influence on the relative response to the two risk cues.
  2. Oxford Academic — full articlePublisher full text used to verify publication history, experimental design, statistical results and the author’s interpretation of direct predator-associated versus heterospecific alarm cues.

Image: Southern giraffe with a red-billed oxpecker in Kruger National Park, South Africa, 25 April 2024. Photo: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons Featured Picture and Quality Image; representative image, not an animal from the study. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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Behaviour

SPECIES IN THIS STORY

Species in this story

Red-billed Oxpecker Buphagus erythroryncha Explore species Southern Giraffe Giraffa giraffa Explore species Lion Panthera leo Explore species

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