An elephant never forgets… but here’s my card, just in case.
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Elephants are one of the most social animal species on earth! They even have names for each other! Who?
Michael Pardo and team from Colorado State University recorded the calls of wild African elephants.
Using AI, they analyzed elephant rumbles. Their rumbles contained specific labels – or names – for each other! When researchers played these calls back, the right elephants responded… suggesting they recognize their own names!
This naming system may help elephants keep track of family and maintain social bonds across vast distances. And, it offers the strongest evidence yet that another species might use invented names.
So maybe we oughtta take elephant small talk seriously!
Reference: Pardo, M. A., Fristrup, K., Lolchuragi, D. S., Poole, J. H., Granli, P., Moss, C., Douglas-Hamilton, I., & Wittemyer, G. (2024). African elephants address one another with individually specific name-like calls. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 8, 1353–1364. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02420-w