Animal behaviour: elephants are capable of vocal learning.
There are a few mammalian species that can modify their vocalizations in response to auditory experience--for example, some marine mammals use vocal imitation for reproductive advertisement, as birds sometimes do. Here we describe two examples of vocal imitation by African savannah elephants, Loxodonta africana, a terrestrial mammal that lives in a complex fission-fusion society. Our findings favour a role for vocal imitation that has already been proposed for primates, birds, bats and marine mammals: it is a useful form of acoustic communication that helps to maintain individual-specific bonds within changing social groupings.
Poole
Joyce H
JH
ElephantVoices, Amboseli Trust for Elephants, PO Box 15135, Langata 00509, Nairobi, Kenya.
Tyack
Peter L
PL
Stoeger-Horwath
Angela S
AS
Watwood
Stephanie
S
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000349:Africa; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001336:Automobiles; D004606:Elephants / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D013016:Sound; D014828:Vocalization, Animal / Q000502:physiology*