African elephants may give each other unique names that are used by family members to have one-on-one conversations in the wild, according to new research which analysed the mammal’s vocalisations using a combination of machine learning, and fieldwork.
Wild African elephants are among the most intelligent non-human animals to roam the planet, and are capable of communicating with each other using complex calls and low-frequency vocal rumblings that convey a wealth of information over significant distances.
The new paper published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution is the culmination of four years of study carried out by researchers from Colorado State University (CSU), and the charities Elephant Voices, and Save the Elephants. Their work included 14 months of field work, during which researchers tracked African elephants in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, and Samburu National Reserve, recording a total of 469 unique calls.
African elephants have names for each other, much like humans, according to a new study by @ste_kenya, @ColoradoStateU, and @ElephantVoices. Published in @NatureEcoEvo, the study sheds light on animal cognition and language evolution.
— Save the Elephants (@ste_kenya) June 10, 2024
? https://t.co/DvlgssJPN3
? @robbielab pic.twitter.com/3vUhTenosx
Logged elephant vocalisations were then analysed using a novel ‘signal processing technique’, which was later augmented with a machine learning model. This allowed the researchers to pick out individual elements of the elephant’s calls, which in turn highlighted what appeared to be a name-like component embedded within, which was seemingly designed to grab the attention of a particular member of the family.
Armed with this information the team then played back the recordings to the same elephants, and found that individuals responded more strongly to vocalisations that the team had isolated as being specifically to them, over calls that did not contain their acoustic identifier.
“Dolphins and parrots call one another by ‘name’ by imitating the signature call of the addressee,” explained the paper’s lead author Michael Pardo, who is a postdoctoral researcher at CSU. “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.”
The authors of the study believe that elephants may have developed the human-like ability to name individuals using bespoke sounds owing to the complexity of their direct family units, and broader clan structures, with whom they form lifelong bonds. The discovery also indicates that the mammals may have developed other ‘vocal labels’ that have yet to be determined, and suggests that elephants may even be capable of abstract thought.
“It’s probably a case where we have similar pressures, largely from complex social interactions,” said study co-author George Wittemyer, a professor at CSU who also serves as chairman of the scientific board of Save the Elephants. “That’s one of the exciting things about this study, it gives us some insight into possible drivers of why we evolved these abilities.”
As is the case with humans, the researchers found that elephants chose not to use direct calls all of the time, but the frequency of those individual specific communications did increase when that member of the clan was far away, or a juvenile.
For more science news, why not read up on a rare medical case, in which a woman in Canada became intoxicated from alcohol fermented in her own body, or check out some orbital views of a total solar eclipse that swept across the U.S. earlier this year.
Image credit: George Wittemyer.
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer
