science Watch / Saul Scheinbach
Remarkable Elephants
“They have this ability to individually call specific members of their family with a unique call. – M. A. Pardo
What you don’t know about elephants may surprise you.*
The African Savana elephant (Loxodonta africana) is the largest land animal. Adult bulls reach 10 feet at the shoulder and weigh up to 15,000 pounds. The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is slightly smaller, and the Forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) is smaller still, reaching 10,000 pounds. All three species are highly intelligent and social animals.
Elephants exhibit many humanlike traits. Friends and family members develop strong bonds. When they meet after an absence, they perform a “greeting ceremony” involving vocalizations and physical contact. Elephants are empathetic, helping others climb out of mudholes. They will touch the remains of a dead elephant and appear to mourn. Mothers nurture their young, teaching them survival skills. Young females vie to become the “auntie,” mothers-in-training of a calf, babysitting it while mom is away.
African elephants live in a community of diverse personalities, the herd. Each herd is led by a matriarch. She is the oldest female with a mental map of the terrain within a 50-mile radius. She leads her charges to food and water so they can consume the 400 pounds of vegetation each needs daily. During a drought, a matriarch may lead them to a water source she hasn’t visited in decades. Everyone in the herd is related to her: sisters, children, nieces and nephews; but no mature males. When males reach puberty, they must leave the herd.
We are only now deciphering their language. In Nature Ecology & Evolution, July 2024, scientists showed that elephants call each other by name. They used machine-learning to tease out specific rumbles elephants use when addressing an individual. Michael Pardo, Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, and his colleagues analyzed 469 rumbling calls made by wild African elephants at two reserves in Kenya between 1986 and 2022. In each instance the scientists knew the caller and receiver.
They found that a particular rumble was attached to a certain receiver more often than would be expected based on chance. They then assessed 17 elephants for their response in the field. When they played that rumbling back to the receiver it would respond, while a different call elicited no response. “The elephants responded much more strongly on average to playbacks of calls that were originally addressed to them relative to playbacks of calls from the same caller that were originally addressed to someone else,” said Pardo.
Elephants also have a secret “seismic” form of communication. They make extremely low frequency rumbles (infrasound) inaudible to us. These sound waves travel to their feet and into the ground, vibrating outward at least five miles to communicate with distant individuals. Their feet sense the vibrations, which are decoded in the brain. Seismic communication yields complex interactions. A matriarch signals her herd to leave a water hole and a distant, rival matriarch who detects the vibration now tells her herd they can head there to drink without any conflict. That signal also travels to a far-off male looking to mate who heads to the water hole to find a receptive female.
Elephants are smart. They can solve puzzles. For example, they can open nested boxes requiring pulling, pushing and sliding to obtain the food within. They use tools; a leafy branch becomes a fly swatter or backscratcher.
Elephants are also members of an elite group of self-aware animals. The “mirror test,” assesses the ability of an animal to comprehend it is seeing itself in a mirror. In 2006 researchers performed the test on three female Asian elephants at the Bronx Zoo. After realizing there was nothing behind the mirror, the elephants began examining their body parts. They performed repetitive body movements in front of the mirror, exploring their reflections from different angles and inspecting their open mouths. After each animal’s forehead was marked with a white “X,” one of the three looked in the mirror, walked away and touched the mark. She clearly understood she was seeing herself. Besides humans, only great apes, bottlenose dolphins, killer whales and Eurasian magpies have shown that degree of self-recognition.
There were 10 million wild elephants in 1900. Today there are only half a million, a 95% drop. Sadly, the illegal ivory trade still kills 100 wild elephants each day. At that rate wild elephants will be extinct by 2040. —Saul Scheinbach
*The American Museum of Natural History is featuring “The Secret World of Elephants” until August 3, 2025