How horses whinny has long been a mystery. Now scientists think they know the answer
February 24, 2026
2 min reading
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Horses neigh, making sounds in a unique way not seen in other animals.
The distinctive sound horses make when they neigh is created by combining low and high sounds, like grunting and whistling at the same time.
Martin Gallagher/Getty Images
How horses neigh has long been a mystery. The sound is quite distinct from any other sound in the animal kingdom. And now, scientists think they’ve discovered why: Horses neigh by producing sounds at two frequencies at the same time, a bit like singing and whistling simultaneously.
The results, published Monday in Current biology, suggest that horses produce two-frequency sounds in two distinct ways in their larynx or voice box. A low-frequency sound of around 200 hertz is produced by the vibration of the vocal cords, just as we do when singing. And a high-frequency sound of more than 1,000 hertz is produced by whistling in the larynx.
“We finally know how the two fundamental frequencies that make up a neigh are produced by horses,” Élodie Briefer, associate professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Copenhagen and co-author of the paper, said in a statement.
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In general, the larger an animal – and its larynx – is, the lower the frequency of sound it produces. Meanwhile, smaller creatures, like mice, produce high-frequency whistling sounds. But this study suggests that horses are unique in their ability to whistle and vibrate their vocal cords at the same time, the authors write.
“This will be a landmark paper in terms of spurring research on vocalizations in equines,” said Sue McDonnell, assistant professor of reproduction and behavior at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research. New York Times.
The findings support a theory that horses may have evolved to communicate multiple messages in a single vocalization, the study authors write.
“In the past, we found that these two frequencies were important to horses because they convey different messages about their own emotions,” Briefer said in the same release. “We now have compelling evidence that they are also produced by distinct mechanisms. »
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