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Elephants communicate using specific calls that function like names, indicating complex social behavior and advanced cognitive abilities.
The ability to learn to produce new sounds is uncommon among animals but necessary for identifying individuals by name. Arbitrary communication – where a sound represents an idea but does not imitate it – greatly expands communication capability and is considered a next-level cognitive skill.
“It’s probably a case where we have similar pressures, largely from complex social interactions,” Wittemyer said. “That’s one of the exciting things about this study, it gives us some insight into possible drivers of why we evolved these abilities.” The study also found that elephants, like people, don’t always address each other by name in conversation. Calling an individual by name was more common over long distances or when adults were talking to calves.
New insights into elephant cognition and communication revealed by the study strengthen the case for their conservation, the researchers said. Elephants are classified as endangered, due to poaching for their ivory tusks and habitat loss from development. Because of their size, they need a lot of space and can be destructive to property and hazardous to people.
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