Plants Can Scream? And Can Animals Hear Them? 

Two years ago, a team of scientists from Tel Aviv University were the first to show that plants scream when they are distressed or unhealthy (Khait et al., 2023). The sounds emitted are ultrasonic and out of the range of human hearing. Plants are not sentient, however. The sounds they make are produced by physical changes due to their surroundings. Many animals can hear these cries just fine. 

This same team has recently discovered that female moths avoided laying their eggs on tomato plants they believed were unhealthy. The researcher’s goal is to continue to investigate the sounds different plants make and determine if other species can hear and make decisions about how to interact with them. It is clear, however, that the sounds plants are emitting can be useful to some animals. 

Finally, these same researchers intend to study if, and how, plants pass information to one another via sound and if there is a response from the recipient.

References

Ghosh, P. (2025). Animals react to secret sounds from plants, say scientists.  BBC.

Khait, I. Lewin-Epstein, O., Sharon, R. et al. (2023). Sounds emitted by plants under stress are airborne and informative. Cell, 186 (7), 1328–1336.