Kathy Costello, age 14, of Eveleth, Minn., for her question:

DOES A GIRAFFE HAVE A VOICE?

Rarely does the giraffe have a word to say for himself, at least not one we can hear. Some observers claim that various members of the family sometimes utter a few sounds. For example, on rare occasions an adult male may utter a gruff grunt or a husky cough. The female may say something that sounds like wha ray  while a junior giraffe conversation is so rare that patient zookeepers hardly ever hear it.

A giraffe has an extra large voice box which seems to be in fine working order. This is why his almost complete silence seems so strange. Some experts suspect that this is not the whole story. Perhaps the tall fellow uses his super voice box to utter supersonic sound beyond the range of human hearing ability.