Elephants call each other by name

New research finds that wild elephants respond to individual names in the same way as humans

Helen Pilcher

DOLPHINS AND PARROTS ARE KNOWN TO address each other by mimicking the sounds they hear other members of their species make, but only humans are known to address each other using names they make up. However, this might not be the case, according to new research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Intrigued to find out whether elephants might be using made-up names, too, study author Michael Pardo, a behavioural ecologist at Colorado State University, and colleagues first identified 469 calls or ‘rumbles’ made by wild African elephants living in Amboseli National Park and Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves in Kenya. Each of the vocalisations had a known caller and a known receiver, and an algorithm was used to predict which of these sounds were potential names…

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Bbc Wildlife (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2024

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