WASHINGTON : 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.
FILE PHOTO: A bird perches on an elephant as it walks at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo 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.
The study's findings indicate that elephants"address one another with something like a name," according to behavioral ecologist Mickey Pardo of Cornell University and formerly of Colorado State University, lead author of the study published on Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Elephants, Earth's largest land animals, are highly intelligent, known to have keen memory and problem-solving skills and sophisticated communication. Previous research has shown that they engage in complicated behavior - visual, acoustic and tactile gestures - when greeting each other.
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