Wildlife discoveries - Elephants have names
They call each other by rumbling sounds
What can swim for six hours non-stop? What can chill in water by floating and staring into the deep recesses of a river or an ocean? What can breathe using the tip of its nose held above water? What can use the same nose to drink 8 litres of water?
The answer is a bit of a give-away (it’s an elephant !). They are excellent swimmers and can dive deep and use their trunks like snorkelling gear (keeping it above water) and breathe throughout the time they swim.
This week’s post is based on a recent scientific discovery about elephants and their language skills. This research was conducted by a team of biologists from the USA and was based on the sound recordings obtained from wild elephants in Africa
A chance meeting with elephants in Kenya (Africa)
Micky Pardo, a biologist from Cornell University (USA), was on a trip to Kenya where he visited Marjorie. He stroked her trunk, gave her a pat and whispered a few jokes (which Marjorie admittedly found poor and did not laugh in response). Micky Pardo moved onto meet Marie, another tusker in the same wildlife sanctuary. Marie was happy to eat out of Pardo’s hands. Once fully fed, Marie strolled over to where Marjorie stood. Together they appeared to be deep in conversation (perhaps ridiculing Pardo and his jokes).
Pardo wondered if his jokes were that bad. He also wondered if these elephants had no more than a few sounds for language like ‘loong grunt ___ shake head and lift trunk to show the man Pardo ____ short grunt short grunt ____ shake heads ___ long grunt.’
Or, Pardo wondered if elephants had a fully developed language to converse with each other, like ‘Hey Marie, did you hear that joke about the monkey and the banana? I tried being polite to Pardo and laugh, but it was so bad’
Pardo also wondered ‘Do they have names for each other? If yes, do they call each other as Marjorie or Marie, the names humans call them by? Or do they have their own versions of names?
Whilst many creatures have been known to have some form or variation of a language unique to their species, not much is known if they have NAMES for themselves. (So far, species known to have unique names are dolphins and parrots, apart from humans of course).
Pardo’s question was a very BIG IF question that merited more research. He swung into action to find out more.
Collecting sounds and playing them on loudspeaker
Pardo and his team visited several national parks in Kenya - Amboseli National Park, Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves. Wild African elephants roamed inside these forests freely. They placed voice recording devices throughout the park (it was a tough task finding spaces where the elephants would not trample these devices). They collected sounds made by the wild elephants - some were deep and low rumbling sounds and some were loud trumpets.
They analysed these sounds using AI (aka machine learning) and checked to see if the rumbles contained identifying information — essentially, a “name”. AI algorithm seemed to indicate certain sounds as “names”. But Pardo wanted to check if the computer model was indeed right.
Enter loudspeakers near elephants.
The researchers did some field work and tested these sounds on the elephants. They placed a loudspeaker near an enclosure of elephants. They wanted to check if these elephants recognised their own names and reacted to them.
They found situations where any one elephant was grazing by himself / herself. Then the researchers played two recordings on the loudspeaker.
One of them was a sound made by another elephant containing the name of the recipient elephant grazing.
The second recording was that of a sound made by another elephant containing the name of a different recipient elephant.
Each time, the researchers noted that, the elephant would walk close to the loudspeaker if it heard the sound containing its own name. Sometimes the elephant would also go near the loudspeaker, lift its trunk and make a rumbling sound as though in response to the message conveyed over the loudspeaker. However, the same elephant barely lifted its head when the loudspeaker played a recording intended for a different recipient.
Thus it turned out that elephants did have a deep rumbling sound that they associated with their own name. So far, scientists suspect dolphins and whales have signature sounds for each creature (which might be like their names). But amongst land mammals, elephants are the first species for whom human researchers have been able to confirm this finding.
How do they get their names?
Another scientist called Karl Berg (a biologist at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) had earlier studied how parrots called each other. In parrots, he had noticed that the young ones aka parrot nestlings get their unique signature calls (or names) by slightly modifying the signature calls of their caregivers.
When Pardo and his team tested if a similar relationship existed amongst elephants, they found this to be true. The rumbling sounds seem to contain identifying information or names that were often seen generated by elephant mothers who were addressing their calves :) Moms are the ones who possibly name their kids amongst elephants!
Of course, we don’t know if they are just nicknames or full and complete names with a first name, middle name and a surname!
Podcast this week - 3rd episode from the Queens who ruled India series
Tribhuvana Mahadevi lived a 1000+ years ago. Her husband (i.e. king) died in a battle (that was a tad more fierce than what he had reckoned for). The heir to the throne was an infant and it would be a while before he could even hold a spoon and eat by himself (let alone rule the kingdom). The dear queen mother ascended the throne as a regent (till the boy was old enough to read, write and ride a horse onto a battlefield).
Why did I choose this queen? To put it simply, she was brilliant. Her reign was famous for its prosperity (she helped traders get rich - an excellent way to ensure people wrote only great things about her); she maintained peace by keeping enemies at bay (she encouraged women to fight on the battle turfs and thus commanded one of the largest armies in the world).
I have NOT narrated her story in this podcast episode (got a little bored of that format). Instead, I have played a game called ‘Am I Serious or Joking’ with two children who joined me in this recording. Listen to the game RIGHT HERE!