Elephants Use “Names” to Communicate

A team of biologists have discovered that elephants can call each other by name. It is widely known that these amazing animals display social acts like grieving, raising offspring collectively, and communicating across miles of countryside using low frequency sounds. But proving that they actually have names for each other takes this to a new level. The idea for this study came from observations of an elephant herd that researchers were following in Kenya. The matriarch of the herd could use a certain call that would bring all of the elephants together around her. However, at other times when she used a very similar call only one elephant would respond.

To see if this was truly naming, the scientists used AI to analyze and separate the sounds that they thought were meant for individual elephants. When they played one of these recorded calls on a speaker, the elephant that it was directed to was the only one that responded by calling back. Being able to recognize and respond to a specific sound like that is a strong indication that elephants are capable of “thought abstraction” - a clear sign of higher intelligence.