What Sounds Do Tigers Make? 11 Calls and What They Mean

Quick Take

• Tigers make a sound so low it falls below the threshold of human hearing, and researchers think this serves a specific purpose. Discover tiger infrasound →
• The anatomy behind a tiger's roar is stranger than you'd expect, with fat playing a bigger role than lung size. Explore the roar anatomy →
• Tigers have a 'friendly' vocalization that keepers hear during greetings, and it sounds nothing like a roar. Hear about chuffing →
• Researchers are now using tiger sounds to track wild populations without ever needing to see the animals. See the Prusten Project →

Tigers are not exactly quiet animals. They communicate with their tails, body posture, scent marks, scratches, and a surprisingly deep catalog of vocalizations. Some sounds are friendly, others are warnings, and the famous roar can carry across a huge distance. Researchers have even recorded tiger roars with frequencies dipping below the normal range of human hearing.

If you thought tigers basically had two settings, growl and roar, there is a lot more going on. From chuffs and moans to contact calls and low-frequency roars, here are the sounds tigers make and what scientists and animal-care experts think they mean.

What Sounds Do Tigers Make?

Tigers have a much bigger vocal repertoire than the roar they are famous for. They growl, roar, moan, hiss, snarl, grunt, chuff, and produce several shorter calls that keepers and researchers describe with words such as “woof,” “mrr,” or “arf.” The exact meaning depends on the sound and the situation. A roar, for example, can advertise a tiger’s presence over long distances, occur during mating, or show up during tense encounters.

Here are some of the sounds that have been recorded or described in tigers:

• Growl
• Roar
• Moan
• Hiss
• Bark or woof
• Gasp or breathy call
• Chuff
• Mrr or moo-like call
• Arf-like call
• High-pitched cub call
• Contact call (“owh” sound)
• Mini-roar or click-growl
• Low-frequency and infrasonic components
• Snarl

Tiger cubs are born blind and helpless, generally weighing only a few pounds. Their ear canals also remain closed for roughly the first week or so. Young cubs use high-pitched squeaks, whines, and meow-like calls to stay in contact with their mother. As they grow, their voices change along with the rest of them, eventually developing the much deeper sounds associated with adult tigers.

Contact Call

Purpose of vocalization: Advertises a tiger’s presence and helps maintain contact with other tigers.

Tigers are known for making a contact call that Zoo Atlanta keepers describe as sounding a little like “owwWW.” The call can be repeated several times and is one of the sounds keepers regularly hear from Sumatran tigers.

At Zoo Atlanta, keepers observed their tigers using these calls after swapping between indoor and outdoor spaces. The animals appeared to use the sound to announce that they were back in a shared area. In the wild, vocal communication is especially useful for an animal that spends most of its life alone and may need to communicate without actually seeing another tiger.

Bark

Purpose of vocalization: Often associated with surprise, agitation, or an abrupt warning.

The Prusten Project helped document just how varied tiger vocalizations can be. Animal keepers had described certain short calls as barks, and recordings captured the abrupt sound. You can still hear examples in the project’s recording archive.

This is not a dog-style bark with one fixed meaning. Tigers can produce short, sharp calls when startled, annoyed, excited, or responding to something nearby. Depending on the sound, “bark,” “woof,” or “short roar” may simply be the closest human description for a noise that does not have a perfect English translation.

Moans

Purpose of vocalization: Often used during tense situations or closer-range communication.

A tiger’s moan is softer than a full roar and can sound like a mix between a whine, growl, and contact call. Tigers may moan when tense or uncertain, and softer vocalizations also play a role in communication between mothers, cubs, and other nearby tigers. The exact meaning depends heavily on body language and whatever else is happening at the time.

Chuff or Prusten

Purpose of vocalization: Chuffing is a friendly vocalization used between familiar tigers, including mothers and cubs and potential mates.

Tigers do not produce a continuous domestic-cat-style purr, but they do chuff. Jaguars, clouded leopards, and some other big cats make similar friendly sounds. Tiger keepers regularly hear chuffs during greetings, courtship, and interactions between mothers and their young.

Chuffing, also called prusten, is made with the mouth closed as the tiger pushes short bursts of air through its nostrils. The result is a breathy snort that sounds considerably friendlier than a roar. If a tiger is chuffing at a familiar keeper or another tiger, that is generally a much better sign than seeing bared teeth and hearing a growl.

Mini Roar or Click Growl

Purpose of vocalization: A shorter roar-like sound that can occur during tense or aggressive interactions.

Researchers studying tiger acoustics have recorded shorter vocal sequences described as “mini-roars,” sometimes followed by a low growl. Similar calls are also described as click-growls in accounts of tiger behavior. They are shorter and less intense than a full roar, but they can still serve as a pretty clear warning that another animal is getting too close.

Snarl

Purpose of vocalization: Warn or intimidate a perceived threat.

If a tiger feels threatened, a snarl is one of the sounds you may hear. Growling, snarling, and hissing are all associated with aggressive or defensive encounters. A mother protecting cubs may use these warning signals against another tiger or anything else she considers a threat. Combined with flattened ears, exposed teeth, and tense body posture, the message is not especially subtle.

Roar

Purpose of vocalization: Long-distance communication, advertising presence, mating communication, and warnings during tense encounters.

A tiger’s roar can carry close to 2 miles under favorable conditions. That makes sense for a mostly solitary cat that may need to communicate across dense forest or a large home range. Tigers roar to announce their presence, communicate during mating, and respond to other tigers. Mothers can also use loud calls to communicate with cubs.

Breeding behavior can involve plenty of vocal activity. A San Diego Zoo tiger fact sheet notes that vocalizations are part of reproductive behavior, along with scent marking and other signals.

The anatomy behind that roar is just as interesting. Researchers studying tiger and lion vocal folds found that these cats have large, unusually shaped vocal folds built to produce loud, low-frequency sounds efficiently. The rough quality of a roar also has some acoustic similarities to a human infant’s cry, although a tiger is obviously operating on a much larger scale.

How Do Tigers Roar So Loudly?

The tiger roar is not just the result of having a big animal with big lungs. The vocal folds themselves are specialized. Research on lions and tigers found large, square-edged vocal folds with deep layers containing fat. That combination allows the tissue to begin vibrating at relatively low lung pressures while still producing extremely powerful, low-pitched sounds.

Large Vocal Cords

Tigers have enormous vocal folds compared with smaller cats. Anatomical measurements reported in research on tiger and lion vocal folds found tissue more than 2 centimeters thick in some specimens. Size matters, but the shape and mechanical properties of the tissue are just as important to producing those deep roars.

Fat

The deep layers of tiger vocal folds contain fat cells embedded in connective tissue. Researchers think that fat helps shape the vocal fold into the broad, flattened geometry that makes roaring efficient. It may also help protect deeper tissue from some of the mechanical stress created by such powerful vocalizations.

Flat-Square Shaped Vocal Cords

One of the most unusual features is the broad, relatively square edge of the vocal fold. Instead of simply adding more mass, this geometry helps the folds respond efficiently to airflow and lowers the pressure needed to start them vibrating. The result is a voice built for low, loud calls rather than the smaller, higher-pitched sounds associated with many other mammals.

Tigers Make Sounds Inaudible to Human Ears

Some of the most interesting parts of a tiger’s roar may be frequencies you cannot hear at all. Human hearing is generally described as extending down to about 20 hertz, although the exact limit varies from person to person.

Acoustic researchers recording Siberian and Bengal tigers measured some roar fundamentals around 17.5 hertz, putting part of those vocalizations in the infrasonic range. Low-frequency sound can also travel efficiently over long distances, which could be useful for an animal trying to communicate through dense habitat.

What Is Tiger Infrasound For?

Researchers have proposed that very low-frequency components could help with long-distance communication, territorial signaling, or reproductive interactions. What we do know is that some tiger roars reach below 20 hertz. What is much less certain is whether tigers deliberately use a separate “infrasound language” to attract mates or frighten rivals. The evidence does not support being that specific yet.

Tiger home ranges can also vary enormously depending on sex, prey availability, habitat, and population density. Some males occupy areas covering hundreds of square miles, while tigers living in prey-rich habitats may use much smaller ranges. There is no single 60-mile hunting radius that applies to the species.

Can Tigers Meow?

Tigers do not normally make the classic little “meow” we associate with a house cat, but saying they are completely incapable of anything meow-like goes too far. Tiger cubs can produce high-pitched calls described as mews or miaows, and adult tigers make softer “mrr” or moo-like vocalizations that can sound surprisingly catlike.

Big cats such as tigers and lions have vocal anatomy specialized for roaring. Differences in their hyoid apparatus, vocal tract, and especially the structure of their vocal folds help produce powerful low-frequency calls. The old explanation that one extra ligament simply lets them roar while preventing every other catlike sound is a little too neat for what researchers now know.

Why Can’t Tigers Purr?

Under the usual scientific definition of purring, tigers cannot produce the continuous in-and-out-breath purr of a domestic cat. That does not mean a relaxed tiger is silent. Chuffing can serve a similar friendly social role, and tigers make plenty of other softer sounds.

The anatomy is more complicated than the old “one bone equals purring” explanation. Tigers have a partly ligamentous hyoid apparatus and large, flexible vocal folds adapted for roaring. Research suggests those large vocal-fold pads may make the rapid, continuous vibration needed for a true purr difficult. In other words, the same general vocal system that makes a tiger’s roar so impressive is not built like the one inside your house cat.

Prusten Project: Saving Tigers With Their Own Sounds

Tigers remain endangered. The Global Tiger Forum’s 2023 estimate, cited by WWF, put the wild population at about 5,574 animals. That is an improvement from the roughly 3,200 estimated in 2010, but it is still a tiny global population for one of the world’s most recognizable predators.

The Prusten Project, founded by Courtney Dunn, explored whether tiger voices could become another conservation tool. Researchers collected recordings from captive tigers and studied whether individual animals could be distinguished by their vocal characteristics. The larger idea was to use passive acoustic recorders in wild habitat to detect and potentially identify tigers without needing to see them. Acoustic monitoring is not a replacement for camera traps or field surveys, but in dense forests where tigers are notoriously hard to spot, being able to listen for them offers researchers one more useful tool.