Wild African Elephants Use Names To Address Each Other, Just Like We Do

adogslifephoto - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only
adogslifephoto - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only

Throughout human cultures, names are a key part of an individual’s identity. They help us communicate with each other, connect us to our cultural and family history, and give us a sense of belonging.

However, personal names have long been thought of as strictly a human concept. New research has debunked that idea and suggests that wild African elephants address each other with specific calls that are equivalent to names.

In the study, a team of researchers analyzed the calls of wild elephants from two areas in Kenya—the greater Samburu ecosystem located in the north and the Amboseli National Park in the south.

In total, they counted around 470 separate elephant calls. There were 101 unique callers and 117 unique receivers. The researchers only included calls that were made toward a single elephant.

They measured the acoustic features of the sounds the elephants elicited and conducted statistical tests on the data.

They wanted to see if it was possible to guess the identity of the elephant receiving the call from listening to the call itself.

Ultimately, the researchers found that receivers of calls could be identified from the structure of the call.

The team was also interested in seeing whether the calls imitate the receiver’s own vocalizations, as other species, such as dolphins, have been discovered to do.

After combing through the elephant data, they did not find much evidence that the callers were mimicking each receiver’s own vocalizations.

adogslifephoto – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only

“Our finding that elephants are not simply mimicking the sound associated with the individual they are calling was the most intriguing,” Kurt Fristrup, one of the authors of the study, said.

“The capacity to utilize arbitrary sonic labels for other individuals suggests that other kinds of labels or descriptors may exist in elephant calls.”

Additionally, the authors played recordings of calls addressed to 17 elephants to evaluate their responses.

The subjects approached the speaker and responded more quickly to test playbacks than control playbacks.

Overall, the findings may be the first evidence of a non-human species utilizing a naming system to refer to individual members of their community. The discovery also provides a new perspective on the evolution of language.

The reason why this phenomenon is present in elephants could be because of their social structures.

Elephants are known to have complex social networks, both within their family groups and the larger community. They have a tendency to branch off into smaller parties and rejoin broader groups later on.

“Due to their fission-fusion social dynamics, [elephants] are often separated from their closely bonded social partners,” explained the authors.

“Vocal labels probably allow elephants to attract the attention of a specific distant receiver.”

It is hoped that researchers will continue exploring the social cognition of elephants. This study can be found in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

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Emily  Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a ... More about Emily Chan

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