أفريقيا

A new study suggests that wild African elephants in Kenya use individualized, name-like calls to address each other, similar to human names. Unlike dolphins and parrots, which mimic sounds to communicate, elephants create unique calls without imitation. Researchers analyzed 469 calls from female elephants and calves, finding that the acoustic structure varied based on the recipient. This discovery, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, highlights the elephants' sophisticated social communication and cognitive abilities. The findings could provide insights into the evolution of language in social animals. This is especially interesting as most mammals are not really capable of learning to produce new sounds. "We knew some individual elephants could also mimic sounds. Now this study may point towards why vocal learning may also be important; name calling in the wonderfully complex social biology of elephants," explained Coen Elemans, a professor of bioacoustics at the University of Southern Denmark.