Watch: Elephants have names for each other just like humans, scientists find

Imagine hearing a noise akin to the rhythmic ‘duh, duh, duh, duh’ of a distant helicopter followed by a low rumbly growl.

The sound is actually the name of one of Kenya’s elephants.

Scientists have discovered that wild African elephants have individual names and will respond “energetically” when called.

Unlike human names, elephant names often consist of a broad range of sound frequencies and pulses and include infrasonic noises, below the audible range of the human ear.

It raises the prospect that humans may one day be able to ‘talk’ to elephants if more of their calls can be interpreted.

Professor George Wittemyer, of Colorado State University, said: “We found that elephants are using names and so it is pretty exciting.

“Elephants are a highly social, highly vocal species and we know there is a lot going on with their communication but we haven’t been able to decipher much.

“We know if we could get insight into what they’re saying we could get a new insight into what they think.

“Elephants do these really interesting behaviours when they are in a big group. A matriarch will give a call and the entire group will respond and other times she gives a seemingly similar call and nobody will respond except for a single elephant in the group.

“So that indicates they have a means to which they can communicate who they want to talk to.”

Researchers spent over a year recording more than 400 calls between individual elephants at Samburu National Reserve and Amboseli National Park in Kenya. They used machine learning to pick out vocalisations which could have been names.

Once sounds that appeared to relate to individual animals had been spotted, the team then played the ‘names’ back to the animals to see if they would respond. They found that they did.

In contrast, when the names of other elephants were played, they were ignored. The names appear to be arbitrary, and not based on mimicking noises made by the individual, similar to human names.

It suggests that elephants are creative, and can come up with a sound, assign it to an individual, pass it through the group and then use it for communication.

Elephants, like humans, function within highly complex social networks, ranging from a nuclear family unit to a larger clan structure and they are constantly calling to each other.

Lead author Michael Pardo, who researched at CSU said: “There are some intriguing parallels between elephants and humans that might suggest why our communication systems have evolved certain similarities.

“We are both long-lived large-brained species with extensive periods of parental care, we also have complex social networks where we have lifelong social bonds.

“There is some evidence to suggest we were both self-domesticated. Nobody domesticated us but both humans and elephants have highly cooperative societies and are much less aggressive than say chimpanzees.

“When you develop a more cooperative society you need some means of facilitating that.”

Only a few other mammals are known to have names for individuals.

Sperm whales are thought to use a unique code of clicks to identify members of their group, while bottlenose dolphins call out the specific names of loved ones when they become separated.

If humans could one day communicate with elephants it could help save the animals, which are under threat from hunting and habitat loss.

“I’d like to be able to warn them, ‘Do not come here,” added Prof Wittemyer. “You’re going to be killed if you come here.’”

He added: “We often take it for granted that we are the most important thing. These other creatures have really complex lives and nuanced relationships and are thinking about the world in very complex ways that we don’t even recognise and I hope that teaches us to value them more.”

The research was published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.