At some point in early childhood, many of us are quizzed on what sounds animals make, which prompts us to learn our best moo and cluck. But have you ever wondered why a cow moos? In an attempt to better understand animals, researchers have studied communication across the animal kingdom, because unlike Dory the fish, we don't speak whale.

Cows only moo in certain situations, and have different moos to communicate different things. Monica Padilla de la Torre and her team analyzed moos between mother and baby free-range beef cows, and found that the moms made a louder, higher-pitched sound when separated from their calves versus when they were close by. The louder moo seemed to alert the babies they were looking for them. The baby cows also had a specific moo for when they were hungry but didn't see their mom.

Additionally, as NPR explains, "De la Torre says the calves' higher-frequency moos and the older cow's lower-frequency moos were individually distinctive, suggesting moms and babies may actually recognize each other's voices." In the same article exploring the meaning of moos, the author spoke to cattle geneticist Jared Decker, who explains that cows also moo to find their friends, when they want to mate (both bulls and cows moo for love), and to let their farmer know when they're hungry.

Cows also moo when they're stressed. Happy cows don't moo because there's nothing to be mooing about! "It's when something's out of the ordinary that they need to moo," Decker explains. Cows also have other verbal, as well as non-verbal, forms of communication, including grunts and tail wagging.

Meanwhile, in the pig pen, there may be some impressive conflict resolution happening. A 2022 study led by Giada Cordoni found that when bystander pigs witness a fight, they may engage in physical contact to reduce levels of aggression or anxiety. They offer one of the warring animals "the calming touch of their snouts, rubbing either of the parties with their ears or simply sitting up against one of the opponents."

The researchers say these conflict mediation tactics point to pigs' ability to empathize with their pen mates and sense anxiety and other emotions. The unsolicited, nurturing physical contact also suggests the mediating pig knows when and how to intervene. Bystander pigs were more likely to crisis mitigate with pigs they were closely related to, suggesting they, like humans, recognize and react to familial connections.

"Pigs are highly social, and they have a very complex and high cognitive capacity to recognize familiar individuals,” Cordoni said. She describes the intervention by the third (bystander) pig as a “triadic conflict mechanism.” Her study is the first time this has been observed in pigs—humans, primates, wolves, and birds are the only others known to do it—demonstrating what she notes as pigs' “evolutionary convergence with humans.”

In another 2022 study of pigs, researchers created an algorithm to analyze pig sounds and found they were linked to certain emotions. Longer, higher-pitched squeals are associated with negative emotions, while shorter sounds with limited volume change are associated with positive emotions. The researchers say the algorithm could also be used to better decode other animals' sounds, and could be made into an app to help farmers.

For the fellow fur parents out there, you've probably wondered if cats and dogs can understand us. We've all seen the cute videos where they greet their human with what sounds like a hello. But, as a 2009 Scientific American article points out, dogs seemingly speaking English (or any other language) is more akin to imitating than talking. Psychology scholar Gary Lucas explains that dogs vocalize with each other, varying their tones to express emotions, so it benefits them to be sensitive to different tones. Dogs are able to imitate humans because they pick up on the shifts in their tonal patterns.

Lucas compares this imitation to bonobos, who have been found to imitate some tonal patterns, including pitch shifts, vowel sounds, and even rhythms. "The vocal skills of some of the dogs and cats on YouTube suggest that they might also have some selective tonal imitation skills," he said.

Psychologist and dog expert Stanley Coren added that the process of dogs learning to "speak" is a pretty straightforward process: the "owner hears the dog making a sound that resembles a phrase, says the phrase back to the dog, who then repeats the sound and is rewarded with a treat. Eventually the dog learns a modified version of her original sound. Dogs and other animals have poor pronunciation skills because they can't use their tongues and lips the same ways we do. As Lucas puts it, 'dogs have limited vocal imitation skills, so these sounds usually need to be shaped by selective attention and social reward.’”

While animals "talking" to us is very cute, they don't understand what they're saying. Like some of us humans (myself included), animals are very food-motivated. They did it all for the cookie.

Birds are certainly the Chatty Cathys and reigning karaoke champs of the animal kingdom, with certain species skilled at mimicking nearly any sound in their environment, from car alarms to human voices to calls of other birds and animals. As The Atlantic states in the captivating 2022 article "You’ve Almost Certainly Been Duped by a Bird," the African fork-tailed drongo is "perhaps the most duplicitous con bird," imitating predators when it spies small mammals hunting for food. The hungry critters hear the (false) warning calls and run off, and the drongo steals their food. To keep up the scam, drongos establish trust by offering helpful calls when actual danger is present.

Interestingly, many birds are not the greatest impersonators, yet animals still fall for it. In the case of meerkats and drongos, if the former assume the call is fake when it isn't, they could lose their lives, so they run. Yet off-tune mimicking can leave researchers stumped, unable to understand what they're trying to replicate.

As The Atlantic puts it, "our biased human perspective can skew the way we assess mimicry, causing us to cast nets that are too narrow or too wide.” On the other side of the coin, if the imitation is strikingly similar to the original, researchers might miss it. "In order to study mockery, researchers need to identify incongruity: a bird making a noise that we and the animal listener think it’s not supposed to make."

There is still much to be learned in the field of animal communication, even if humans are the only species known to have a true language—which must be learned versus instinctive and offer an unlimited ability to express ideas. Research has shown that some animals’ communication is more complex than originally thought. A 2014 study compared animal sounds from seven species to mathematical models ranging in complexity. Before the study, it was believed that animal communication was more random, but it showed that five of the studied species, including killer whales and free-tailed bats, have patterns that are "definitively more language-like than random."

Even though I can't have a real conversation with my cats, I feel like they know when to give me comforting purrs, and I certainly know when they're asking for food. Communication is essential in all human relationships, yet it isn’t always easy even when you speak the same language. Perhaps the communication required with the animals in our lives feels much simpler because, even though they don’t understand the words “I love you” (or any others for that matter), they feel our care for them and send us back unconditional love, witnessed through tail wags and cuddles. Despite being the world’s most complex communicators, maybe we humans should look to our furry friends to simplify our communication and show our love for each other–and ourselves–with animalistic abandon.