The African elephant is one of the few known wild animal species that may call each other and react to individual "names," or rather name-like calls, according to recent research by biologists from the US Colorado State University's Warner College of Natural Resources published in the Nature Ecology & Evolution journal.
“Dolphins and parrots call one another by ‘name’ by imitating the signature call of the addressee,” the study's lead author, Michael Pardo, was quoted in the research's press release as saying. “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.”
Elephants roar low, far across the savanna, and some of their sound can be heard as their names. According to scientists, animals with intricate social networks and families that split up and then get back together frequently may be more prone to using unique names. That makes wild African elephants one of the few species that have the uncommon ability to learn new sounds throughout their lifetime.
Using a sound collection of savanna elephant vocalizations captured at Kenya's Samburu National Reserve and Amboseli National Park, biologists employed machine learning to identify the usage of names. In order to watch the interactions—such as when a mother called to a calf or when a matriarch called to a straggler who eventually joined the family group—researchers trailed the elephants in jeeps.
The computer model, which solely examined the audio data from the national park, correctly identified the elephant that was being addressed 28% of the time, most likely because its name was included. When given meaningless data, the model only identified 8% of calls correctly.
According to the study results, the elephants responded more vigorously to the noises that included their name, flapping their ears and lifting their trunks, while the researchers tested their findings by replaying the sounds to each individual elephant.
“They were probably temporarily confused by the playback but eventually just dismissed it as a strange event and went on with their lives,” said Pardo.
Colorado State University ecologist and co-author of the research, George Wittemyer, explained that elephants speak infrasonically and sonically, so specialists had to utilize a specialized microphone to record their calls because around half of the sound in their call is actually inaudible to humans.
Wittemyer argued that elephants are expressive creatures whose reactions are simple for people who are acquainted with them to read. The elephants showed that they knew their names when the researchers played back samples of them responding "energetically" and favorably to recordings of their friends and family calling to them. However, the elephants did not move or react enthusiastically to calls directed toward others.
Elephants are "incredibly social, always talking and touching each other, and that naming is probably one of the things that underpins their ability to communicate with individuals," he added.
However, to identify the names hidden within the calls and ascertain whether elephants name other objects they interact with, such as food, water, and locations, the scientists said that a lot more data is required.
Wittemyer stated, "Unfortunately, we can't have them speak into microphones," pointing out the obstacles to gathering enough information.