Jun 13, 2024 06:00:00Analysis of wild African elephants' calls reveals they call each other by nameHumans call each other by names and nicknames, and sometimes even give names to pets and familiar animals. African elephants address one another with individually specific name-like calls | Nature Ecology & Evolution, a behavioral ecologist at Colorado State University, has been studying wild African elephants for many years and has come to suspect that African elephants call each other using name-like calls. 'Interestingly, we found that calls that African elephants make to specific listeners are less similar to the listener's calls compared to calls they make to other individuals. The results of this study suggest that African elephants need to identify individuals by name in order to form a complex society, and that African elephants have the ability for abstract thinking. Pardo argued that by studying how African elephants' calls developed, we may be able to get clues about the evolution of human language.

Source: The Guardian June 12, 2024 22:00 UTC