What’s in a name? People use unique names to address each other, but we’re one of only a handful of animal species known to do that, including bottlenose dolphins. Finding more animals with names and investigating how they use them can improve scientists’ understanding of both other animals and ourselves.who have observed free-ranging elephants for years, my colleagues and I get to know wild elephants as individuals, and we make up names for them that help us remember who is who.
Next, we wanted to determine whether elephants could perceive and respond to their names. To figure that out, we played 17 elephants a recording of a call that was originally addressed to them that we assumed contained their name. Then, on a separate day, we played them a recording of the same caller addressing someone else.The elephants vocalized and approached the source of the sound more readily when the call was one originally addressed to them.
Name-like calls in elephants could potentially tell researchers something about how human language evolved.