Kicker: An elephant by any other name

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Perhaps you’ve never wondered before how you ought to address an elephant, but a 25 year study suggests that Kenyan savannah pachyderms may have names they use for one another.

WITTEMYER: Elephants are highly social, highly vocal species…

George Wittemyer’s day job is a professor at Colorado State University. But he’s also a sound technician.

WITTEMYER: We undertook this study by recording elephants.

Researchers then played those recordings to elephants outside the herd.

SOUND: [ELEPHANT]

In this recording by Michael Pardo in 2021, an elephant pauses to listen, but doesn't call back. Researchers believe it’s because the message isn’t addressed to her. The study also found that at times a pack leader calls and the whole herd responds, but then at other times, everyone ignores her except one single elephant.

WITTEMYER: It's quite complicated…and we know that if we could get inside into what they're saying we could really get a new perception on how they think.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Might not be the best to know everything those elephants are thinking. Who knows what names they call the researchers who keep eavesdropping on their conversations!!

BUTLER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

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