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  • Title: Animal behaviour: elephants are capable of vocal learning.
    Author: Poole JH, Tyack PL, Stoeger-Horwath AS, Watwood S.
    Journal: Nature; 2005 Mar 24; 434(7032):455-6. PubMed ID: 15791244.
    Abstract:
    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.
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