Study shows African elephants call each other by name

A new report on African elephants has revealed the wild animals, just like humans, use "names" to address each other, findings that will help in conservation efforts of the endangered animal.

The study published on Monday by Save the Elephants, a conservation group based in Nairobi, Kenya, Colorado State University and conservation organization Elephant Voices, provides unprecedented insights into animal cognition and the evolution of language.

Researchers collected audio recordings of wild female-calf groups in Kenya's Amboseli National Park in 1986 to 1990 and 1997 to 2006 and Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves in November 2019 to March 2020 and June 2021 to April 2022.

The recorded vocalizations from the elephants indicated that they address each other with individually specific calls dubbed "vocal labels". The calls were uncovered using a machine-learning algorithm known as Random Forest.

The ultimate dataset comprised 469 distinct calls, of which 101 unique callers and 117 unique receivers were identified.

When these calls were played back, the elephants responded energetically to those addressed to them, approaching the source and vocalizing in response — further supporting the existence of "vocal labels".

Joyce Poole, scientific director of Elephant Voices, said over the years she often observed a particular elephant's contact call answered excitedly by one family member, yet a second contact call was answered by a different elephant.

Mickey Pardo, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University, said the study not only shows that elephants use specific vocalizations for each individual, but that they recognize and react to a call addressed to them while ignoring those addressed to others.

"This indicates that elephants can determine whether a call was intended for them just by hearing the call, even when out of its original context," he said.

Deeper understanding

The study findings will help in a deeper understanding of elephant cognition, offering invaluable insights for their conservation, according to the experts.

George Wittemyer, senior author of the study, said it promotes fascination and interest in elephants, which hopefully translates to empathy for the species and support for conservation efforts.

"The hope is that if we can decipher how they communicate, we may be able to communicate more effectively and directly with them," he said in an email to China Daily.

He told China Daily the study findings are only applicable to African elephants but not in other regions like Asia, because elephants in those regions are different species.

Following population declines over several decades due to poaching for ivory and loss of habitat, the African forest elephant is now listed as critically endangered. The number of African elephants in the wild is about 400,000, while an estimated 60,000 elephants live in Asia, according to Wittemyer.

Frank Pope, the chief executive of Save the Elephants, said despite the fact that elephants are separated from humans by a hundred million years of evolution, they have converged on many aspects of their lives.

"We live for similar periods, in extended family units with rich social lives, underpinned by highly developed brains. AI is helping to open up a new frontier in our understanding of the natural world; that elephants use names for one another is likely only the start of the revelations to come," he said.