Elephants greet each other using their unique names, like humans

Latest Science & Tech Team TabloidPK June 13, 2024 0 Comments 60 Views

Elephants greet each other using their unique names, like humans

A new study shows elephants greet each other using their unique names just like humans. It means elephants can communicate with one another by creating distinctive, rumbling sounds. This ability makes the only non-human animals to use language for their interaction.

Previous studies showed that bottlenose dolphins may use distinctive sounds to communicate with one another. They inspired this new research study, revealing interesting facts about elephants using unique names to call each other.

*Both elephants and dolphins communicate with their community using unique sounds and names*

Mickey Pardo is a biologist at Cornell University. He said another bottlenose dolphin would sometimes copy anyone else’s unique sound to get their attention, which is the same as calling them by name.

Hence, he was interested in finding out if elephants, known to be able to copy sounds, could also do this. Mickey said the point of this project from the start was to find out if elephants have names.

They concluded that elephants greet each other with steady, low-frequency rumbling sounds that are highly varied. Elephants communicate in several ways, from greeting family members to consoling a calf (young elephant) to maintaining closeness to distant relatives by making specific, recognizable noises.

*An African elephant making rumbling sounds and calling a unique name to address another elephant*

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According to Mickey, the sound structure of elephants shows a significant variation. Mickey and his team conducted this research by analyzing recordings of 469 rumbling sounds produced by African wild elephants to one another.

Mickey revealed scientists have recorded in Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves in Kenya and Amboseli National Park between 1986 and 2022.

This research goal was to determine whether elephants have names from the beginning. The research team used a machine learning model to find whether the rumbling sounds of elephants had any information, particularly a “name.” This model helped the team to determine that 27.5% of the time, elephants received a call with unique names.