By Will DunhamWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Over the years, researchers who study elephants have noticed an intriguing phenomenon. Sometimes when an elephant makes a vocalization to a group of other elephants, all of them respond. But sometimes when that same elephant makes a similar call to the group, only a single individual responds.Could it be that elephants address each other by the equivalent of a name? A new study involving wild African savannah elephants in Kenya lends support to this idea.The researchers analyzed vocalizations – mostly rumbles generated by elephants using their vocal cords, similar to how people speak – made by more than 100 elephants in Amboseli National Park and Samburu National Reserve.Using a machine-learning model, the researchers identified what appeared to be a name-like component in these calls identifying a specific elephant as the intended addressee. The researchers then played audio for 17 elephants to test how they would respond to a call apparently addressed to them as well as to a call apparently addressed to some other elephant.The elephants responded more strongly on average to calls apparently addressed to them. When they heard such a call, they tended to behave more enthusiastically, walk toward the audio source and make more vocalizations than when they …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnBy Will DunhamWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Over the years, researchers who study elephants have noticed an intriguing phenomenon. Sometimes when an elephant makes a vocalization to a group of other elephants, all of them respond. But sometimes when that same elephant makes a similar call to the group, only a single individual responds.Could it be that elephants address each other by the equivalent of a name? A new study involving wild African savannah elephants in Kenya lends support to this idea.The researchers analyzed vocalizations – mostly rumbles generated by elephants using their vocal cords, similar to how people speak – made by more than 100 elephants in Amboseli National Park and Samburu National Reserve.Using a machine-learning model, the researchers identified what appeared to be a name-like component in these calls identifying a specific elephant as the intended addressee. The researchers then played audio for 17 elephants to test how they would respond to a call apparently addressed to them as well as to a call apparently addressed to some other elephant.The elephants responded more strongly on average to calls apparently addressed to them. When they heard such a call, they tended to behave more enthusiastically, walk toward the audio source and make more vocalizations than when they …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
