Research published last month in PNAS provides evidence that African elephants (Loxodonta africana) can differentiate human voices. This is a very important skill to an animal that is often threatened by humans. Prior research has shown that elephants could tell the difference between African ethnic groups using sight and scent.
The study was conducted by Drs. Karen McComb and Graeme Shannon (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK). They recorded men from two different Kenyan ethnic groups speaking in their native language the phrase “Look, look over there, a group of elephants is coming.” The groups of men were from either the Maasai, a semi-nomadic group that sometimes kill elephants and the Kamda, crop farmers that rarely have violent contact with elephants. They then located and played back the voice recordings to 47 elephant groups in Kenya while observing their behavior. What they discovered was that Massai voices caused the elephants to smell the air or huddle together twice as tightly than when they heard the Kamba voices.
According to a quote from Fritz Vollrath (Zoologist, University of Oxford, UK) published in Nature, “We knew elephants could distinguish the Maasai and Kamba by their clothes and smells, but that they can also do so by their voices alone is really interesting.”
What was even more interesting is that the elephants were less likely to run away when they heard Maasai women or boys speaking as compared to Maasai men. Study author McComb believes this fear of adult male Maasai may be learned as opposed to innate behavior. “Even though spearings by Maasai have declined in recent years, it’s still obvious that fear of them is high. This is likely down to younger elephants following the lead of their matriarchs who remember spearings from long ago.” A study published in PLOS One supports this theory as elephants were found to adjust their vocal frequencies in response to vocal threats from humans vs bees.
Soltis J, King LE, Douglas-Hamilton I, Vollrath F, Savage A. African Elephant Alarm Calls Distinguish between Threats from Humans and Bees. PLOS One. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089403
McComb K, Shannon G, Sayialel KN, Moss C. Elephants can determine ethnicity, gender, and age from acoustic cues in human voices. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1321543111
Video from Nature