The beaver’s most distinctive feature is their large flat tail, which serves as a rudder when swimming, a prop when sitting or standing upright, and a storehouse of fat for the winter. Beavers will also slap their tail on the surface of the water as a danger warning to other beavers or sometimes in play.  The effect is similar to what one strives to achieve by striking a large gong (except with the water as the vibrating surface and the tail being the mallet).

Like many frogs, male Caribbean white-lipped frogs sing to attract mates. But their songs contain more than just pleasing sounds.  When they call, the frogs sit with their rear ends buried in the mud and their head and front legs just above the ground. With each chirp, their vocal sacs expand and contract, hitting the ground and producing an accompanying vibration.

For years, scientists have known elephant calls contain low, sub-sonic rumbling frequencies that travel farther underground than above. The enormous pachyderms detect vibrations through their nose and their toes, locating the shaking source using a combination of sensory structures and jiggling bones.  There are also literally "drumming elephants" in Thailand.

Oceans are far from silent.  Some evenings the noise emanating from the ocean is so great it keeps sailors awake.  The responsible fish: the gurnard.  They use special muscles to vibrate their swim bladders, creating a rumbling sound, sort of like ancient, deep war drums.

Male jumping spiders go to great lengths to attract females, putting on colorful and elaborate displays that also include a vibrational component.  Male spiders create vibrations by rubbing parts of their bodies together, drumming body parts against the ground, and vibrating special organs. These vibrations make the female more likely to mate, and less likely to eat her suitor.

Banner-tailed kangaroo rats, like kangaroos, hop on two legs, but the back two are often drumming out patterns of "footrolls" in the dirt. Accomplished tap-dancers, they use footdrumming to communicate with their neighbors, sending vibrations through the ground and into the air.

The male mole cricket’s odor and appearance have no effect on the female.  It is the noise he makes that works like a charm.  The male mole cricket rubs the finely ridged vein of his right elytron against the rugged underside of his left elytron to produce his unique call, like an animal version of a reco-reco or guiro.

Mole rats live in underground burrows without much light for visual signals, and sound doesn’t travel very far. So several species of mole rats communicate by head-banging.  The Middle East blind mole rat knocks its head against the walls of its tunnels to signal to its neighbors. Demon mole rats also head-bang to talk to each other, and the pattern of their banging might even be specific enough to communicate an individual’s identity to its neighbors. 

In the wild, macaques drum by shaking branches or thumping on dead logs; gorillas beat their chests and clap their hands; and chimpanzees drum on tree buttresses.  Monkeys are naturally percussive.

Thumping the back foot is a natural reaction among rabbits to danger that they have smelt, heard or seen.  Rabbits stand on all four feet, sometimes in a tip-toe position, with their ears alert, then lift their rear feet and thump to warn other rabbits.

Residents of the Southwestern United States have heard the warning buzz of the rattlesnake, signaling predators to stay away. “Rattles are segments of keratin that fit loosely inside one another at the end of the snake’s tail,” explained Sara Viernum, a herpetologist based in Madison, Wisconsin. “These segments knock against each other to produce a buzzing sound when the snake holds its tail vertically and vibrates the rattle. Each time a rattlesnake sheds its skin it adds another segment to the rattle.”

African termites build giant mounds in which they live and grow fungus for food. If a mound is threatened by a predator such as an aardvark, chains of drumming termite soldiers head-bang an alarm.  To alert the entire colony of an impending attack, termites bang their heads on the ground about 11 times a second. One termite’s head-drumming travels only about 15 inches, but any termite close enough to hear the alarm responds by drumming its head too. In this way, the alarm spreads like a chain reaction through the colony.

Treehoppers are tiny insects that communicate with each other by vibrating the stem they’re sitting on. Although none of their signals are perceptible to humans without the aid of specialized instruments, they produce a surprising variety of vibrational signals: to announce a new food source; to warn of predators; and to attract mates. Interested females respond to these vibrational courtship songs by vibrating back.