New research published recently reveals that African elephants communicate using individual names, a behavior seen in few wild animals. The elephants’ low rumbles, audible over long distances on the savanna, contain these unique identifiers, facilitating their complex social interactions.
Researchers believe this naming system is crucial for species with intricate social structures and family groups that frequently separate and reunite.
“If you’re looking after a large family, you’ve got to be able to say, ‘Hey, Virginia, get over here!’” noted Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved in the study.
While humans, dogs, dolphins, and parrots are known to use names, it is extremely rare among wild animals, each of these species, including elephants, can learn to produce unique sounds throughout their lives, an ability linked to naming.
In the study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, biologists employed machine learning to analyze a sound library of elephant vocalizations recorded at Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve and Amboseli National Park.
They observed which elephants called out and which responded, such as a mother calling her calf or a matriarch summoning a straggler.
The computer model, analyzing only audio data, correctly predicted the addressed elephant 28% of the time, compared to just 8% accuracy with meaningless data. “Just like humans, elephants use names, but probably don’t use names in the majority of utterances, so we wouldn’t expect 100%,” explained study author and Cornell University biologist Mickey Pardo.
Elephant rumbles include infrasonic sounds, below human hearing range. The specific part of the vocalization that constitutes the name is still unknown.
The research further revealed that researchers tested their findings by playing recordings to individual elephants, who responded more energetically to calls containing their names, often ignoring calls addressed to others.
“Elephants are incredibly social, always talking and touching each other — this naming is probably one of the things that underpins their ability to communicate to individuals,” said co-author and Colorado State University ecologist George Wittemyer, also a scientific adviser for the nonprofit Save the Elephants. “We just cracked open the door a bit to the elephant mind.”
