Study Shows Elephants Might Call Each Other by Name

Study Shows Elephants Might Call Each Other by Name
A bird perches on an elephant as it walks at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, on April 4, 2024. Monicah Mwangi/Reuters
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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.

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.