Elephants are already known for their incredible intelligence, deep social bonds, and unique physical traits—like their multi-functional trunks and near-silent footsteps despite their massive size. But new research suggests they may have one more remarkable ability: calling each other by name.
A study conducted in Kenya indicates that elephants might use specific, individualized vocalizations to communicate directly with members of their herd, much like humans do with names. Researchers had long observed that sometimes an elephant's call would prompt a response from the entire group, while other times, a similar vocalization would only get a reaction from one specific elephant—almost as if they were being personally addressed.
To investigate, scientists analyzed the vocalizations of 100 African savannah elephants in Amboseli National Park and Samburu National Reserve. Using machine learning, they identified sounds that appeared to be directed at particular individuals. When these vocalizations were played back to 17 elephants, the targeted elephant responded by moving toward the audio source and showing more enthusiasm than when hearing a call seemingly meant for someone else.
“They could tell if a call was addressed to them just by hearing that call,” said lead researcher Mickey Pardo, a behavioral ecologist at Cornell University (formerly of Colorado State University).
A Rare Ability in the Animal Kingdom
According to findings published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the use of individual names is uncommon among animals. Bottlenose dolphins and orange-fronted parrots also call each other by specific sounds, but they do so by mimicking the call of the recipient. Elephants, however, seem to assign arbitrary names, similar to how humans do—an ability that suggests a degree of abstract thought.
One of the most common instances of “name usage” in the study involved mother elephants calling to their calves, seemingly to soothe them or check in. However, while researchers could determine that elephants were using individualized calls, they weren’t able to isolate the actual “names” from the vocalizations.
“If we could do that, we could answer a lot of other questions that we weren't able to fully figure out in this study,” Pardo told NPR.
Unanswered Questions About Elephant Communication
This discovery raises fascinating new questions:
- Do elephants all use the same “name” for an individual, or do they have nicknames?
- Do they talk about each other when another elephant isn't around?
- What other complex information might their vocalizations contain?
The full structure of elephant communication remains a mystery. “We still don't know the syntax or basic elements by which elephant vocalizations encode information,” said George Wittemyer, a conservation biologist at Colorado State University and study co-author.
What is clear, however, is that elephants are even more mentally and socially sophisticated than we previously thought.
“Being able to address one another in this way requires an understanding of social relationships and a highly developed learning ability,” Pardo said. “The fact that elephants address one another as individuals highlights just how important their social bonds are.”
As research continues, we may one day unlock even more secrets about how elephants communicate—and perhaps even learn to understand them better than ever before.