Elephants call each other names like people do, scientists say

Scientists have confirmed what conservationists have previously suspected, that elephants call each other by names.

Elephants have social groups and also name each other like humans do.
Elephants have social groups and also name each other like humans do.

Scientists from Colorado State University (CSU) have found that wild African elephants address each other with name-like calls. This was long suspected beforehand but only recently a science study confirmed it.

Trumpeting and rumbling their vocal cords creates variations in their vocalisations, which can coordinate group movements over large and distant journeys.

This behaviour is considered rare in animals that are not humans, but it is not uncommon to hear of how intelligent elephants are as a species such as with the phrase “an elephant never forgets.”

It might be the same case for names, based on a recently published study in Nature Ecology and Evolution. For the study, researchers from CSU and organisations Save the Elephants and ElephantVoices partnered to use machine learning AI to listen in to elephant calls (or “conversations”.)

Save the Elephants is a research and conservation organisation based in Kenya and ElephantVoices provides a “library of African elephant behaviour”.

Monitoring elephant voices using latest tech

The collaborative team used a signal processing method to identify small changes in their vocalisations while pairing it with an AI driven machine learning model to identify which elephant a call was referring to.

They found their calls contained a name-like sound to identify another elephant. The researchers took recordings which seemed to show elephants responded positively to calls that specifically addressed them, while calls for other elephants were less responded to.

“Dolphins and parrots call one another by 'name' by imitating the signature call of the addressee,” said lead author Michael Pardo, who conducted the study as an NSF postdoctoral researcher at CSU and Save the Elephants, “By contrast, our data suggest that elephants do not rely on imitation of the receiver's calls to address one another, which is more similar to the way in which human names work.”

Extending what we know about elephants

This recollection by using “arbitrary vocal labels” expands what we know about the intelligence of elephants and their ability for abstract thought. Like humans, elephants are socially complex, working in family systems and social groups. Through evolutionary time, this may have driven the need to name each other.

"It's probably a case where we have similar pressures, largely from complex social interactions,” Wittemyer said. “That's one of the exciting things about this study, it gives us some insight into possible drivers of why we evolved these abilities.”

Elephants also have their own form of body language.
Elephants also have their own form of body language.

Also like humans, elephants do not only communicate vocally but with touch and scent. Information about the elephant calling out can also be gleaned by their vocalisations by the scientists, from their age, sex to their emotional state.

More is waiting to be understood about the extent of their intelligence and hidden languages, such as in situations around food and water resources. More understanding in this way could heighten the conservation efforts of this endangered animal.

Source of the news:

African elephants address one another with individually specific name-like calls. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02420-w