African elephants address one another with individually specific name-like calls
Abstract
Personal names are a universal feature of human language, yet few analogues exist in other species. While dolphins and parrots address conspecifics by imitating the calls of the addressee, human names are not imitations of the sounds typically made by the named individual. Labelling objects or individuals without relying on imitation of the sounds made by the referent radically expands the expressive power of language. Thus, if non-imitative name analogues were found in other species, this could have important implications for our understanding of language evolution. Here we present evidence that wild African elephants address one another with individually specific calls, probably without relying on imitation of the receiver. We used machine learning to demonstrate that the receiver of a call could be predicted from the call's acoustic structure, regardless of how similar the call was to the receiver's vocalizations. Moreover, elephants differentially responded to playbacks of calls originally addressed to them relative to calls addressed to a different individual. Our findings offer evidence for individual addressing of conspecifics in elephants. They further suggest that, unlike other non-human animals, elephants probably do not rely on imitation of the receiver's calls to address one another.
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Pardo et al. (2024) recently found evidence that wild African savanna elephants use name-like calls-which were specific to the receiver but did not imitate the receiver's vocalizations-to individually address conspecifics.
“Indeed, Pardo et al. (2024) recently found evidence that wild African savanna elephants use name-like calls-which were specific to the receiver but did not imitate the receiver's vocalizations-to individually address conspecifics.”
From Do elephants really never forget? What we know about elephant memory and a call for further investigation (2025) · cites this paper as Pardo et al., 2024
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Mahon, L., Pardo, M. A., Miron, M., Chemla, E., Granli, P., Njiraini, N., Moss, C. J., Keen, S. C., & Poole, J. H. (2026) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-026-68525-3
Self-citationCucurella, P. (2026) · Philosophy of Translation · doi:10.1080/29984750.2026.2740631
A Preview of Computational Animal Linguistics
Dang, T. M., Desai, A., Lekhak, H., Panunto, T., Pike, L., Wang, S., & Zhu, K. Q. (2026) · ACM Computing Surveys · doi:10.1145/3850160
Identified: Rigid Signs, Speech Chain Networks, and Indexical Personhood
Fleming, L. (2026) · Signs and Society · doi:10.1017/sas.2026.10075
The soundscape wheel: a conceptual map for tourism geographers
Keller, R., Wilsnach, N., Ruiz-Arana, U., Cerwén, G., Martin, J., van Bendegom, C., & Hu, Y. (2026) · Tourism Geographies · doi:10.1080/14616688.2026.2741193
- Authors
- Pardo, M. A., Fristrup, K., Lolchuragi, D. S., Poole, J. H., Granli, P., Moss, C., Douglas-Hamilton, I., & Wittemyer, G.
- Affiliations
- Colorado State University (US)
- Save the Elephants (KE)
- Corresponding author
- Pardo, Michael A.
- Venue
- Nature Ecology & Evolution
- Published
- 2024-06-10
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1353-1364
- ISSN
- 2397-334X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4399490190
- Cited by
- 62
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 14
- FWCI
- 26.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2025-07-17)
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Ecology & Evolution (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1907122)
- National Geographic Society
- Care for the Wild Crystal Springs Foundation
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Marine animal studies overview
- Keywords
- Loxodonta africana, acoustic structure, language evolution, animal communication, vocal individuality
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Elephants, Female, Male, Social Behavior, Vocalization, Animal
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