Research suggests elephants give each other names

Mooney Goes Wild contributor Terry Flanagan shares his latest batch of nature news.

Wild elephants give each other names in much the same we do, meaning they may also be capable of abstract thought, suggests new research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The study was based on almost 500 different calls made by African elephants.

The most common call was a harmonically rich, low frequency sound, unique to each individual. Each of the vocalisations had a known caller and a known receiver, and an algorithm was used to predict which of the sounds were potential names and which elephant they were likely to describe.

Next, the researchers played recordings of these 'names' to different elephants and found that elephants responded more enthusiastically to their own name than they did to the names of others.

When they heard their name, they approached the speaker more quickly and responded more vocally. The finding suggests that elephants have specific vocalisations or 'names’ for each other, and that they can recognise these names even when they occur out of context.

Name calling was more common when animals were communicating over long distances, the authors found, and also when adults were talking to their calves. Calves were less likely to use names than adults, suggesting that the ability to devise and use names is a skill that takes years to learn.

The ability to devise and link a sound with the identity of another animal suggests that elephants have a hitherto unappreciated depth of cognitive ability – they may even be capable of abstract thought.

There might be a Ph.D in that!