Elephants call each other with the equivalent of a name specific to each individual, according to a study based on the observation of two wild herds in Kenya, published Monday in the scientific journal Nature.
This study “shows that elephants not only use a specific vocalization for each individual, but that they recognize and respond to a call intended for them while ignoring those addressed to others,” said its first author, Michael Pardo.
This research “supports the idea that elephants can invent arbitrary names for each other,” continued this specialist in pachyderm communication at the American University of Colorado State, quoted in a press release.
The proof comes from the recordings made by the Save the Elephants association in the Samburu reserve and the Amboseli national park in Kenya. With, after a passage through analysis software, a set of 469 calls including 101 calling elephants and 117 recipients of such calls.
The pachyderm joins Man in its ability to assign an arbitrary name to the recipient of its call, and not a vocalization imitating that of the latter. To date, only two animal species, a dolphin and a parrot, are known to address a conspecific by imitating the vocal signature of the recipient of their call.
In the elephant this communication is special. In practice, researchers observed that one individual addressed another with a specific signal. This name was not necessarily used by others to address this same individual. On the other hand, the elephant receiving this call clearly distinguished the one addressed to him and ignored those sent to conspecifics.
These observations “indicate that they have a capacity for abstract thought”, according to professor at the University of Colorado George Wittemyer, supervisor of the study and quoted in the press release.
The calls, commonly made in the form of grunts, are more frequent at a distance as well as in the case of adults speaking to young. Adults also use these calls more readily than young people, suggesting that the ability to make these names takes years of learning.
Researchers are wondering about the origin of this gift, in a species whose distant ancestors diverged from primates and cetaceans around 90 million years ago.
The study assumes that the extremely social behavior of elephants may have favored the development of this ability to exchange.
For the director of Save the Elephants, Frank Pope, these animals and humans share many particularities, including an existence in “extended family units, with rich social lives”. He is convinced that these recent discoveries are only “the beginning of revelations to come”.