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WHEN "HEY YOU" WON'T DO —


ELEPHANTS MAY REFER TO EACH OTHER BY NAME


THE ANIMALS SEEM TO RESPOND MORE ACTIVELY TO CALLS THAT INCLUDE THEIR "NAME."

John Timmer - 6/11/2024, 10:31 PM

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READER COMMENTS

32

Lots of animals communicate with each other, from tiny mice to enormous whales.
But none of those forms of communication share all but a small fraction of the
richness of human language. Still, finding new examples of complex
communications can tell us things about the evolution of language and what
cognitive capabilities are needed for it.

On Monday, researchers report what may be the first instance of a human-like
language ability in another species. They report that elephants refer to each
other by individual names, and the elephant being referred to recognizes when
it's being mentioned. The work could be replicated with a larger population and
number of calls, but the finding is consistent with what we know about the
sophisticated social interactions of these creatures.


WHAT’S IN A NAME?

We use names to refer to each other so often that it's possible to forget just
how involved their use is. We recognize formal and informal names that refer to
the same individual, even though those names often have nothing to do with the
features or history of that person. We easily handle hundreds of names,
including those of people we haven't interacted with in decades. And we do this
in parallel with the names of thousands of places, products, items, and so on.

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And, as far as we've known, there's very little like that capacity in the animal
world. The closest examples that have been firmly established are what are
termed "signature calls." These are cases where an individual makes consistently
makes a distinctive vocalization that acts as its signature. In a couple of
cases (birds and porpoises), other individuals will sometimes mimic another's
signature call in order to refer to that individual.

While this ability shows the capacity of these species to recognize other
individuals and refer to them, the "names" used are nothing more than mimicry.
There's a big gap between that and recognizing a name like "Ken Fisher" that
makes no reference to any individual properties of that individual.

If we had to pick a species that might have a use for names, elephants would
probably be high on the list. They're
long-lived, have complex social interactions, and are already known to
communicate using low rumbles. We know they have distinct calls used in some
specific social contexts.

So, a team of researchers at Colorado State University collaborated with groups
in Kenya involved in elephant conservation to test whether they might refer to
each other via something similar to a name.

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READER COMMENTS

32
John Timmer John is Ars Technica's science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in
Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology
from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his
keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing
with his hiking boots.

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