Elephants Call Each Other By Names, New Study Says – The First Non-Humans Found to Do So

Turns out, elephants give each other names.

A new study suggests that elephants use specific vocal sounds to identify and address their social partners, making them the first non-humans found to do so without imitating the receiver’s calls.

The study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, was conducted by researchers from Colorado State University and other institutions. They recorded and analyzed 625 calls from wild African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana) in two regions of Kenya: Samburu and Amboseli. They found that 20.3% of the calls could be matched to the receivers based on their acoustic characteristics, indicating that the callers were using vocal labels to refer to specific individuals. In simpler terms, they were calling each other by their names.

The researchers also played back recordings of calls addressed to 17 elephants and observed their reactions. They found that the subjects responded faster and more frequently to the test playbacks than to control playbacks, suggesting that they recognized their own names.

The calls were found to be specific to individual elephants rather than generic sounds, even when different callers communicated with the same receiver. Even calls from various callers to the same recipient exhibited similarities, albeit with a less pronounced pattern compared to the interaction between a single caller and receiver.

According to the authors, this could be attributed to the fact that rumbles encode multiple messages simultaneously, making it challenging for the computer model used in the study to discern the specific “name” used in each call.

Further supporting their findings, the researchers observed that elephants exhibited a stronger response to recordings of calls originally directed at them compared to calls aimed at other elephants.

“The real value of this paper is that it shows how elephants are navigating through a large landscape and can still keep in touch with specific individuals,” Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell, an elephant biologist at Harvard University Medical School who did not participate in the study, told Live Science. “It allows them to spread out much further and still have very close tabs on individuals, not just the group. It’s not just like, I’m sending out a ping. Somebody else is sending out a ping. It’s much more sophisticated than that.”

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This remarkable finding reveals a new level of complexity and individuality in elephant communication. Unlike dolphins and parrots, which use vocal mimicry to address each other, elephants seem to have a naming system that does not depend on copying the receiver’s calls. This may be related to their fission-fusion social dynamics, where they often split and merge into different subgroups and need to maintain contact over long distances.

The study also has implications for understanding the evolution of language and communication in humans and other animals. It shows that elephants have a sophisticated vocal repertoire that allows them to convey information about themselves and others, as well as their social relationships and emotional states.

The researchers hope that their work will inspire more studies on elephant vocalization and cognition, as well as conservation efforts to protect these endangered animals and their habitats.