Elephants Call Each Other by Name, Like Humans Do, Study Finds

Elephants are some of the most intelligent, compassionate and social creatures on Earth, forming tight-knit family groups, social networks and an extended “clan structure,” the members of which not only care for each other, but, as new research shows, call each other by name.

A new study by researchers from Save the Elephants — a conservation and research organization based in Kenya — ElephantVoices and Colorado State University (CSU) has found that when wild African elephants are called by their names, they answer back. They also address one another with name-like calls — a rarity among nonhuman animals.

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“Personal names are a universal feature of human language, yet few analogues exist in other species. While dolphins and parrots address conspecifics by imitating the calls of the addressee, human names are not imitations of the sounds typically made by the named individual,” the authors wrote in the study. “Here we present evidence that wild African elephants address one another with individually specific calls, probably without relying on imitation of the receiver.… Moreover, elephants differentially responded to playbacks of calls originally addressed to them relative to calls addressed to a different individual.”

Using machine learning, the research team confirmed that elephants’ calls had a name-like feature that identified the intended recipient, which they had suspected based on earlier observations, a press release from CSU said.

When recorded calls were played back, elephants responded to those addressed to them with response calls or by approaching the speaker. Calls intended for other elephants did not receive as much of a reaction.

“[O]ur 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,” said lead author of the study Michael Pardo, who was a postdoctoral researcher for the National Science Foundation at Save the Elephants and CSU during the study, in the press release.

Learning to produce novel sounds is rare among animals, but a necessary feature of identifying individuals by name. A sound that represents an idea without imitating it is called “arbitrary communication” and is seen as a “next-level cognitive skill” that vastly augments the ability to communicate.

“If all we could do was make noises that sounded like what we were talking about, it would vastly limit our ability to communicate,” said co-author of the study George Wittemyer, a CSU professor at the Warner College of Natural Resources, as well as chairperson of Save the Elephants’ scientific board, in the press release. 

Wittemyer added that elephants’ use of arbitrary vocal labels means they may also be capable of abstract thinking.

Their complex social systems, similar to those of humans, likely led to the evolution of arbitrary vocal labeling of individuals using abstract sounds, the researchers said.

“It’s probably a case where we have similar pressures, largely from complex social interactions. That’s one of the exciting things about this study, it gives us some insight into possible drivers of why we evolved these abilities,” said Wittemyer.

Elephant calls communicate not just their identity, but their sex, age, emotional state and context of their behavior.

Their vocalizations include low rumbles and trumpeting across a wide spectrum of frequencies, including infrasonic sounds too low for humans to hear. Group movements can be coordinated by using these calls over long distances.

“Our finding that elephants are not simply mimicking the sound associated with the individual they are calling was the most intriguing,” said Kurt Fristrup, a CSU research scientist with the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, in the press release. “The capacity to utilize arbitrary sonic labels for other individuals suggests that other kinds of labels or descriptors may exist in elephant calls.”

The four-year study included 14 months of fieldwork in Kenya where the team recorded elephant vocalizations while following them in a vehicle. They captured approximately 470 distinct calls from 101 individual callers to 117 receivers in Amboseli National Park and Samburu National Reserve.

The study, “African elephants address one another with individually specific name-like calls,” was published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Wittemyer noted that elephants are expressive and those who are familiar with them can easily read their reactions. Samples played back resulted in elephants responding positively and “energetically” to recordings of family members and friends calling to them, while calls directed to others did not garner an enthusiastic response or movement toward the caller, indicating they recognized their own names.

The researchers also discovered that, like humans, elephants don’t always use each other’s names in conversation. Addressing an individual by their name was more often seen when adult elephants were talking to calves or addressing others over long distances.

The research team said they would need much more data to be able to distinguish names within calls to determine if elephants give labels to things such as food, water and specific locations.

Elephants are listed as endangered, primarily due to habitat loss and poaching. The researchers said new insights into their communication and cognition as revealed in the study further bolster the case for conserving these magnificent animals.

Pachyderms need a lot of space because of their size. Wittemyer explained that, while humans conversing with elephants is still far off, the ability to communicate with them could enhance their protection.

“It’s tough to live with elephants, when you’re trying to share a landscape and they’re eating crops. I’d like to be able to warn them, ‘Do not come here. You’re going to be killed if you come here,’” said Wittemyer.