African elephants call each other by and answer to individual names, a new study finds. Such communication is rare in the animal world.
一项新的研究发现，非洲象会用名字互相呼唤，并对名字作出回应。这种交流在动物界非常罕见。

African elephants are among the largest animals that live on land.
非洲象是陆地上最大的动物之一。

The names are one part of the low sounds, or rumbles, elephants make. They can hear these sounds over long distances where they live in the savannah – large grassy areas of land mixed with woodlands.
名字是大象发出的低沉声音或轰鸣的一部分。它们可以在居住的稀树草原上听到这些声音，这些地方是大片草地和林地的混合区域。

Scientists believe that animals with complex social structures may be more likely to use individual names.
科学家认为，具有复杂社会结构的动物更有可能使用个人名字。

Stuart Pimm of Duke University is an ecologist who was not involved with the study. He said, “If you’re looking after a large family, you’ve got to be able to say, ‘Hey, Virginia, get over here!’”
杜克大学的生态学家斯图尔特·皮姆没有参与这项研究。他说：“如果你在照顾一个大家庭，你必须能够说，‘嘿，弗吉尼亚，过来！’”

It is extremely rare for animals to call each other by individual names. Humans have names, of course, and dogs and cats may react when their names are called.
动物用名字互相称呼是极其罕见的。人类当然有名字，狗和猫在听到名字时也可能会有反应。

Some ocean animals, including the dolphin, invent their own names when they are very young. And the birds called parrots may also use names.
一些海洋动物，包括海豚，在很小的时候就会创造自己的名字。被称为鹦鹉的鸟类也可能使用名字。

Each of these naming animals also have the ability to learn and say individual new sounds throughout their lives, as does the African elephant, the research shows.
研究表明，这些起名字的动物也有能力在其一生中学习和发出新的独特声音，非洲象也是如此。

The study was released in the publication Nature Ecology & Evolution. In the study, biologists used machine learning to find the use of names in recordings of savanna elephant sounds. The sounds were recorded at Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve and Amboseli National Park.
这项研究发表在《自然生态与进化》杂志上。在研究中，生物学家使用机器学习在记录的稀树草原象的声音中找到名字的使用。这些声音是在肯尼亚的桑布鲁国家保护区和安博塞利国家公园录制的。

The researchers followed the elephants as they traveled to observe which one called out and which one appeared to answer.
研究人员在跟踪大象旅行时观察哪只大象在呼唤，哪只大象似乎在回应。

By examining only the audio data, the computer model predicted which elephant was being called 28 percent of the time, likely due to the inclusion of its name. When fed meaningless data, the model only correctly predicted eight percent of calls.
通过仅检查音频数据，计算机模型在28%的时间内预测出了哪只大象被叫到，这很可能是由于包含了它的名字。当输入无意义的数据时，模型只正确预测了8%的呼叫。

Biologist Mickey Pardo of Cornell University wrote the study. He said, “Just like humans, elephants use names, but probably don’t use names in the majority” of their communications.
康奈尔大学的生物学家米奇·帕尔多撰写了这项研究。他说，“就像人类一样，大象使用名字，但可能在大多数交流中并不使用名字。”

The low rumbles elephants make also may include sounds that are below the range of human hearing. The scientists still do not know which sounds make up a name.
大象发出的低沉轰鸣声也可能包括低于人类听觉范围的声音。科学家们仍然不知道哪些声音组成了名字。

Researchers tested their results by playing recordings to individual elephants. The elephants reacted more energetically, moving their ears and lifting their trunks, to recordings that contained their names. Sometimes elephants did not react in any way to the sounds of elephant names other than their own.
研究人员通过播放录音给单独的大象来测试他们的结果。大象对包含它们名字的录音反应更加积极，移动耳朵并抬起象鼻。有时大象对除了自己名字以外的大象名字的声音没有任何反应。

Ecologist George Wittemyer of Colorado State University helped write the study. He also is a scientific adviser for the nonprofit Save the Elephants, which aims to protect the animal.
科罗拉多州立大学的生态学家乔治·威特马尔帮助撰写了这项研究。他还是旨在保护大象的非营利组织“拯救大象”的科学顾问。

He said, “Elephants are incredibly social, always talking and touching each other — this naming is probably one of the things that underpins their ability to communicate to individuals.”
他说：“大象是非常社会化的动物，总是在交流和触摸彼此——这种命名可能是支持它们与个体交流能力的因素之一。”

Wittemyer added, “We just cracked open the door a bit to the elephant mind.”
威特马尔补充道：“我们只是稍微打开了一扇了解大象思维的门。”