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The research “not only shows that elephants use specific vocalisations for each individual, but that they recognise and react to a call addressed to them while ignoring those addressed to others”, the lead study author, Michael Pardo, said.
The researchers sifted through elephant “rumbles” recorded at Kenya’s Samburu national reserve and Amboseli national park between 1986 and 2022.
Using a machine-learning algorithm, they identified 469 distinct calls, which included 101 elephants issuing a call and 117 receiving one.
Elephant make a wide range of sounds, from loud trumpeting to rumbles so low they cannot be heard by the human ear.
Names were not always used in the elephant calls. But when names were called out, it was often over a long distance, and when adults were addressing young elephants.
