By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Over the years, researchers studying elephants have noticed an intriguing phenomenon. Sometimes, when an elephant makes a noise to a group of other elephants, they all respond. But sometimes, when that same elephant makes a similar call to the group, only one individual responds.
Could it be that elephants address each other with the equivalent of a name? A new study of wild African savanna elephants in Kenya supports this idea.
The researchers analyzed vocalizations – mostly rumbles generated by elephants using their vocal cords, similar to how humans speak – made by more than 100 elephants in Amboseli National Park and Samburu National Reserve.
Using a machine learning model, the researchers identified what appeared to be a name-like component in these calls, identifying a specific elephant as the intended recipient. The researchers then played audio to 17 elephants to test how they would respond to a call apparently directed at them, as well as to a call apparently directed at another elephant.
On average, the elephants responded more strongly to calls apparently directed at them. When they heard such a call, they tended to behave more enthusiastically, walking toward the audio source and making more sounds than when they heard one apparently intended for someone else.
The study’s findings indicate that elephants “address each other with something like a name,” said behavioral ecologist Mickey Pardo of Cornell University and formerly of Colorado State University, lead author of the study published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
“Certainly, to address each other in this way, elephants must learn to associate certain sounds with certain individuals and then use those sounds to attract the attention of the individual in question, which requires advanced learning and understanding of social relationships,” Pardo said.
“The fact that elephants address each other as individuals highlights the importance of social bonds – and especially maintaining many different social bonds – for these animals,” Pardo added.
Elephants, the largest land animals on Earth, are highly intelligent and known for their sharp memories, problem-solving skills and advanced communication. Previous research has shown that they display complex behaviors – visual, acoustic and tactile gestures – when greeting each other.
Why would an elephant call another elephant by name?
“We don’t know it exhaustively, but our analysis shows that it often occurs during contact calls in which an elephant calls another individual — often by name,” said George Wittemyer, a conservation biologist and co-author of the study at Colorado State University, chair of the scientific council. from the conservation group Save the Elephants.
“It was also common in a mother’s rumbling of her calves, often to calm them down or check on them. We thought we would encounter it in greeting ceremonies, but it was less common in those types of vocalizations,” Wittemyer added.
The use of individually specific vocal labels – names – is rare, but not unprecedented, in the animal kingdom. Dolphins and parrots have been shown to do this too. But when they do it, they are only imitating the sounds of the other animal. In elephants, vocal tags do not simply imitate the sounds of the addressee.
“Instead, their names seem random, just like human names,” Pardo said. “Addressing individuals by arbitrary names probably requires a capacity for some degree of abstract thinking.”
“I think this work shows how intelligent and interesting elephants are, and I hope it will spark more interest in their conservation and protection,” Wittemyer added.
Could humans ever ‘talk’ to elephants?
“That would be fantastic, but we are still a long way from that,” says Wittemyer. “We still don’t know the syntax or the basic elements by which elephant vocalizations encode information. We need to figure that out before we can make deeper progress in understanding them.”
(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
