But its extremely important for elephant seals, to the point of survival. Competing for females, the males fight very violently, even to the point of killing one another. So its very important for them to accurately recognize the voices, to be able to choose the right strategy, to know to avoid a fight with a dominant male, or even to start a fight with an inferior one. Of course, there are some limitations here. This study only analyzed one colonymaybe they were just some really socially conscious elephant seals. More research is needed to determine weather or not all elephant seals can understand pitch and the beat of other elephant seal speech. Anyway, while elephant seals arent the most eloquent species, Id still rather listen to their caterwauling over any Chainsmokers song.