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xtruss · 6 months ago

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African Elephants Call Each Other By Unique Names, New Study Shows! It’s Extremely Rare For Wild Animals To Call Each Other By Unique Names.

— June 10, 2024 | By The Associated Press

In this undated photo, an African elephant matriarch leads her calf away from danger in northern Kenya. A new study in Nature Ecology & Evolution demonstrates that elephants respond to individual names, one of the few animal species known to do so. Photograph By George Wittemyer via AP

Washington— African Elephants call each other and respond to individual names — something that few wild animals do, according to new research published Monday.

The names are one part of elephants’ low rumbles that they can hear over long distances across the savanna. Scientists believe that animals with complex social structures and family groups that separate and then reunite often may be more likely to use individual names.

“If you’re looking after a large family, you’ve got to be able to say, ‘Hey, Virginia, get over here!’” said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved in the study.

It’s extremely rare for wild animals to call each other by unique names. Humans have names, of course, and our dogs come when their names are called. Baby dolphins invent their own names, called signature whistles, and parrots may also use names.

Each of these naming species also possesses the ability to learn to pronounce unique new sounds throughout their lives — a rare talent that elephants also possess.

For the study in Nature Ecology & Evolution, biologists used machine learning to detect the use of names in a sound library of savanna elephant vocalizations recorded at Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve and Amboseli National Park.

In this undated photo, an African elephant family comforts a calf in Samburu National Reserve, Kenya. A new study in Nature Ecology & Evolution demonstrates that elephants respond to individual names, one of the few animal species known to do so. Photograph By George Wittemyer Via AP

The researchers followed the elephants in jeeps to observe who called out and who appeared to respond — for example, if a mother called to a calf, or a matriarch called to a straggler who later rejoined the family group.

Analyzing only the audio data, the computer model predicted which elephant was being addressed 28% of the time, likely due to the inclusion of its name. When fed meaningless data, the model only accurately labeled 8% of calls.

“Just like humans, elephants use names, but probably don’t use names in the majority of utterances, so we wouldn’t expect 100%,” said study author and Cornell University biologist Mickey Pardo.

Elephant rumbles include sounds that are below the range of human hearing. The scientists still don’t know which part of the vocalization is the name.

Researchers tested their results by playing recordings to individual elephants, who responded more energetically, ears flapping and trunk lifted, to recordings that contained their names. Sometimes elephants entirely ignored vocalizations addressed to others.

“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,” said co-author and Colorado State University ecologist George Wittemyer, who is also a scientific adviser for nonprofit Save the Elephants.

#African Elephants 🐘 🐘 🐘#Call Each Other | Unique Names #Extremely Rare #Wild Animals 🦌 🫏 🐘 🐎 🦓 🦒

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cuubism · 2 months ago

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Okay but piggybacking off of your the moping Dream park is close to The New Inn post

What if Hob had finished his grading early and, while walking by, happened to see his stranger sitting on a bench, looking Very Sad? Would Hob approach? Or, would Dream notice him walking by?

Suddenly very excited about an idea I hadn't thought of before aaaaaaa

Richmond Green is the moping Dream park now, we're renaming it, it's done 😂 sorry to the people of Richmond

it's entirely feasible that Hob could just be on a walk and happen to stumble on him which is hilarious to me, it's so funny that you don't have to bend RL logic in the slightest bit for that to happen. it's a bit of a walk between the two but by no means a difficult one, I mean I literally did it the other day 😂 so Hob could 100% just be out for a walk on a nice day and be like hang the FUCK on is that actually my twit of a friend moping on a bench over there?

I honestly don't think Dream would notice him first. He was very much in his own head and in his feels. he was not paying enough attention to anything else to notice Hob. but Hob would 100% approach him, I think after all those years he'd have to seize his shot. Dream would be genuinely surprised to see him and definitely didn't consciously realize he picked his moping spot to be near the White Horse 😂 it worked out for him, though.

Hob's out for a walk on a rare, beautiful sunny day when he nearly trips over own his feet and falls flat on his face in the middle of Richmond Green.

Only nearly. Thankfully.

He catches himself, and turns, wondering if he's hallucinating what he thought he saw at the corner of the park.

No. He didn't. He most definitely did not imagine his stranger sitting on that bench. He's hunched and shadowed, where Hob usually thinks of him as stern and proud, and he looks sad, which-- alright, that's not so unusual. But the posture is, the idleness, the listless way he's tearing apart a baguette to feed crumbs to the birds at his feet.

Hob takes a moment to just... watch him. To take advantage of this rare moment when he's alone and doesn't know he's observed. And he looks... God. He really does look crumpled. Is he always like that, when he doesn't know someone's watching?

Possibly Hob should leave him be. But he's rarely done what he should. This might be his only shot.

There's got to be a reason he's here, of all places, right?

His stranger doesn't seem to notice him until Hob's right before him. "...My friend?"

Hob's heart flips as his stranger looks up. He doesn't flee, or call Hob out for saying 'friend'. His brow furrows in confusion. "...Hob Gadling?"

"The same," Hob says, though he doesn't go by that name now.

His stranger is still confused. "What brings you here?"

He really seems like he doesn't know. How is that possible?

Then again, he may remember where the White Horse once was, and have simply not expected Hob to be there, too. Which, if he were a more reasonable man, Hob wouldn't be.

"Just out for a walk," he says. "Nice day and all?"

Bit of a hike here from the New Inn, but Hob likes walking along the riverside, even when he has to pass the sagging form of the White Horse. And the sun's out, the weather's warm, people are out on the green with their dogs, kids are laughing-- who wouldn't want to be out on such a lovely day?

Well. His stranger, maybe. He certainly doesn't look like he thinks it's a nice day.

"Perhaps," says his stranger, and looks down again at the birds at his feet.

"Mind if I sit?" Hob asks, and when his stranger doesn't say no, sits beside him. He's situated himself deep in the corner of the park, under the shadows of the trees, able to see everything but out of the way for any passersby to see him. It would make Hob laugh if it didn't make him sad.

"I live nearby," Hob says, a continuation of his explanation from before. "Got a bit attached. It's not like me, really, stick around one place for long, but." But to leave the shadow of the White Horse felt like he was also leaving the specter of his stranger.

"You are always in London at the time of our meetings," his friend says.

"Wonder why?" Hob says to the air, and then his stranger does look at him.

"Couldn't risk missing it, could I?" Hob continues, rubbing at his ear. "I haven't spent six centuries in one place, you know. But travel wasn't always as easy as it is now. Had to make sure there was a buffer zone."

"It meant so much to you?" his stranger says, and Hob raises an eyebrow.

"Did my once-a-century meetings with the man who gave me eternal life mean so much to me?"

That doesn't really capture the half of it. His stranger looks away again as if conceding the point.

"Anyway," Hob continues, "after you--" he doesn't finish the thought. "I wanted to stay by the old White Horse. Figured that was why you showed up here."

"I had no specific intention when arriving here," says his stranger, which doesn't explain why, when he could presumably appear anywhere in the fucking world using his magic, he's somehow just sitting on a bench barely a kilometer's walk from their old meeting place. Hob really doesn't know what to do with this creature. He feels increasingly certain he was right about his need for friendship, however. And his unwillingness to acknowledge it.

"Well, since you are here," Hob says, "fancy a much-belated drink?"

"Very well," intones his stranger, and follows Hob as he gets up, looking like the entire weight of the world is upon him with each step.

Hob starts to wonder if there wasn't more at play in their missed meeting than his stranger's sullenness. He certainly hasn't seemed to take offense at Hob's familiarity so far. Hasn't run off, hasn't been too proud to stay. And he's here. However unwittingly. Like a stray animal curled on a familiar doorstep where it was once fed.

Hob doesn't take him immediately to the New Inn--besides the distance, he hasn't actually broached the whole our old inn closed down, I made us another one conversation yet--they simply find seats at the pub by the green. Neutral ground, Hob thinks, even as he silently mourns the lack of history.

His stranger gazes out over the sunlit park, lost in thought, as Hob brings their drinks back from the bar. "Here you are," Hob says, sliding the pint across the table to him. "Can get something to eat too, if you like."

His stranger wraps delicate fingers around the glass. "Thank you. But I am not hungry."

Never is, as far as Hob's seen.

"Offer stands," Hob says, and takes a sip of his own drink. He wants to ask. Wants to know why his friend's shown up now, when he skipped their last meeting, disappeared for decades. But he doesn't want to scare him away.

He does ask-- "What brought you here, then?"

His stranger looks at him, gaze piercing. "You do not wish to know why I did not make our last appointment?"

Hob winces. But well, if he's going to broach the topic. "Why didn't you, then?"

But his stranger looks away. "It's a story for another time. But know that it was not intentional. And I came to... regret. Leaving a friend waiting."

A friend. Hob lights up so much he almost misses the other part of the statement--not intentional. It gives him pause. It makes him... uneasy. A instinct that something isn't right.

But asking directly has never gotten him anywhere with his s-- with his friend.

"No matter," he says, with an encouraging smile. "I'm glad you're here now. And as for regret, I regretted how I phrased things last we met. So, I'm sorry."

His stranger looks back up at him, then, with a tiny smile. It feels like being blessed.

"Hob Gadling," he says, "You've lived your life for these centuries... without any grand sense of purpose." It could almost be an insult except he looks very sincere. "How?"

"Well, you basically told me to, didn't you?" Hob points out, and his stranger blinks once, surprised. "I asked why I was immortal, if there was some purpose for it, what I was meant to do... and you said 'just live your life'. What else is there to do, anyway?"

He wonders what it's like to live his stranger's life. It must be quite, well, strange indeed.

"I've got projects and things," he continues. "Occupy myself in different ways. But to be honest... no grand plan has become apparent. Living is the grand plan."

"And you still enjoy it," his friend says.

Hob clinks their glasses together. "Of course."

"Of course," his stranger echoes.

"Look at this day," Hob says, gesturing to the sunny park, the buzzing energy around them. "What's not to enjoy?"

That tiny smile returns to his stranger's face. "Perhaps you are right."

"Are you sure you don't want something to eat?" Hob adds. Now that he's sitting close to him, he thinks his stranger looks kind of... gaunt. Even more than the usual ascetic look he usually sports. "It's one of the things that makes life worth living, you know."

"Perhaps if you have a recommendation," his stranger concedes, and Hob grins.

He has less than zero idea what his stranger might like, so Hob picks up a few staples: chips, halloumi fries, even a salad because God only knows what a creature like this is meant to eat. He'd tried a variety in 1589 and got nowhere, but he's always willing to try again.

His friend studies everything with a critical eye, then delicately picks up a halloumi fry and takes a small bite. His expression doesn't change, but he keeps eating it so Hob takes it as a win.

"Will you tell me of your life this century?" his friend says, when he's finished the fry and picked up another.

"As usual?"

His stranger nods. He's eating the fries faster now, as if suddenly realizing how hungry he is.

"Don't choke yourself," Hob warns, laying a hand on his wrist to still him before he can think better of it.

His stranger goes still, looking down at where their bodies are touching. Hob almost goes to pull his hand away. He doesn't. His heart thumps once, hard, in anxiety-- worried his friend will disappear again.

He doesn't. Just studies Hob's hand for a moment, and then goes back to eating the fries. So Hob leaves his hand where it is.

"Well," he starts, ready to jump into the whole chaos of the last century-and-a-quarter, "I--"

"There you are," says a new voice, and a woman stops by their table, hands on her hips as she looks at his stranger. "I was coming to find you." Her gaze turns to Hob, unexpectedly fond considering he's never met her before. "But it seems like you already found yourself some company."

His stranger goes still, putting down a half-eaten fry.

"Don't think we've met?" Hob says, friendly but made wary by his stranger's posture.

"Not in a sense," she says, cheery, "but I do know you, Hob Gadling."

A chill runs up his spine, exactly the same as when his stranger had first approached his table in the White Horse all those years ago, and spoken Hob's name like he'd always known it.

"Consider carefully your business here, sister," warns his stranger, but the woman only snorts.

"Come off it, you know that's not why I'm here. I just wanted to check up on you. But it's sweet that you've come to care, isn't it?"

Hob hasn't the faintest idea what this is about. Sister is interesting, though. He hadn't ever really considered his stranger could have a family.

"I have not--" his stranger starts, but doesn't finish the sentence.

"Uh-huh," says the woman, and winks at Hob.

Hob still doesn't know what either of them is on about.

"Care to join us?" he asks instead, but she waves him off.

"I've work to do, I'm afraid." But she steals a fry from his stranger. "Mm! These are good!"

"...Yes," his stranger agrees, at length, looking somewhat put out about it. Now that Hob pays attention, they really do have a sibling vibe, and he'd wager his stranger is the little brother. The thought makes him grin.

"I'll come find you later," says the sister, patting his stranger on the shoulder. Then waves at Hob. "Bye, Hob!"

"Bye?" Hob says, a bit whiplashed. And then she's gone.

"Pay her no mind," says his friend with a sigh.

Hob's paying her a lot of mind, actually, but his main priority is not scaring off his friend. "I'm glad you've got someone looking out for you," he says.

"I suppose," says his stranger, looking back down at his fries.

He doesn't seem to want to talk about it, so Hob jumps into his usual spiel about everything that's gone on since they last met. When he's finished the halloumi fries, and started picking at some of the chopped vegetables in the salad as well, Hob takes him for a walk back down the Thames path, towards the New Inn. With every step he expects his stranger to disappear into shadow. But he's always there when Hob turns to check.

His stranger has always been kind of stoic, but this is taciturn even for him. Hob pauses by a bend in the river, just before the White Horse is set to come into view. "Did... something happen?" he finally asks. "Since last we met?"

His stranger considers, walking slowly beside him. "Have you ever experimented with magic, Hob?"

"Magic? Hell no. Got more than enough of a taste just being accused of it, thanks, don't need to repeat the experience."

His friend hums, seeming satisfied. "I would advise you don't, for lately it seems only to drive men to give in to their worst impulses."

"Power'll do that," Hob says. "What's this about, then?"

"It was an amateur sorcerer who kept me captive this past century," he says, and Hob stops walking.

He turns to his stranger, heart suddenly heavy in his throat. "Sorry. What?"

His stranger just looks at him evenly, as if to say, you heard what I said already. Suddenly the air seems colder, the bright afternoon sun some kind of glaring mockery instead of the lovely day it should be. His stranger's face is dappled by the shadows of overhanging trees, his hair tipped in gold, but his eyes are sad. His eyes are always so sad.

So then it wasn't spite or sulking that kept him away? It was something far more horrible? So then, he might have returned and conceded their friendship, if not for--?

Hob feels sick thinking about it. His proud stranger, imprisoned. So affected that while he may not speak much of it, it had left him sitting alone, listless, sad, in a place where he had once been offered friendship.

Hob leans in and, when his stranger doesn't lean away, pulls him into a hug.

His friend doesn't return it, exactly, but neither does he pull away, and after a moment, the tension in him seems to bleed away. He feels, well--he feels exactly like a normal person to hug. Hob doesn't know what he expected.

"An amateur sorcerer, eh?" he breathes, his friend's hair brushing his cheek.

"So he fancied himself." His voice rumbles through Hob's chest. "Though the magics he played with were very real."

"Must've been." Hob finally releases him, though reluctantly. "Does there happen to be a market for amateur sorcerer's heads nowadays?"

Now his stranger's lips curl into a smirk. "There might be, were he not already dead, and suffering eternally in Hell."

"Right. Well, that's something." No vengeance for Hob, then. Not that it was necessarily his to take.

Perhaps the force with which such violent urges rose in him should surprise him, but it doesn't. This is his old stranger, after all. Hob's stepped in to protect him before, though he didn't truly need it then.

Perhaps he needs it now.

"White Horse closed down, you know," Hob tells him, and his stranger's expression shifts in surprise. "But I've got a new place for us. Come along and I'll show you."

He offers his friend his arm, and is still surprised when he takes it. His grip is light, but steady. Hob gives him a small smile, and continues their walk along the path.

"I've banned any sorcerers from the new inn, you know," he says, and his stranger chuckles.

"Have you?"

"Well I certainly will if any show up."

His friend laughs again, a proper laugh this time. "Your defense is appreciated, my friend."

Hob can't help but beam at being called friend. He's a simple man, really. It's all he ever wanted.

"Be damned if a friend of mine ever comes to harm in my place," he declares, and his stranger just hums, eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiles. "Now, we're about to pass the White Horse," Hob continues, "but I warn you, it's not a pretty sight--"

And like that they continue on, the river quietly meandering along beside them.

#a rare fic that's extremely grounded in literal geography #dreamling #my writing #ask #anonymous

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