Using individual names is characteristic to humans, but it’s not as common in the animal world. Only a few wild animals do this, and elephants fall under this category according to a new study, which found they call each other and respond to individual names.
The new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution saw a team of scientists closely observe a herd of elephants at Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve and Amboseli National Park, in an attempt to collect “evidence that wild African elephants address one another with individually specific calls, probably without relying on imitation of the receiver.”
They came to the conclusion that elephants use low rumbles that they can hear over long distances across the savanna. After analyzing the acoustic structure of their calls, the computer model they used predicted which elephant was being called, likely because their individual names were included in the call.
Using individual names is more common among animals with complex social structures who move in family groups, and elephants fall under this category. Ecologist George Wittemyer, one of the co-authors of the study, told NBC News that elephants are incredibly social, and this naming practice “is probably one of the things that underpins their ability to communicate to individuals.”
