User:Nikogonzalez/sandbox

References:
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june1/elephant-052505.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347205001582

Mimicry
Recent studies have shown that elephants can also mimic sounds they hear. The discovery was found when Mlaika, an orphaned elephant, would copy the sound of trucks passing by. So far, the only other animals that are thought to mimic sounds are whales, dolphins, bats, primates and birds. Calimero, an African elephant who was 23 years old, also exhibited a unique form of mimicry. He was in a Swiss zoo with some Asian elephants. Asian elephants use chirps that are different from African elephants' deep rumbling noises. Calimero also began to chirp and not make the deep calls that his species normally would.

Kosik, an Indian elephant at Everland Amusement Park, South Korea can imitate up to five Korean words, including sit, no, yes and lie down. Kosik produces these human-like sounds by putting his trunk in his mouth and then shaking it while breathing out, similar to how people whistle with their fingers.

Ecologist O’Connell-Rodwell’s conducted research in 1997 which concluded that elephants create low-frequency vibrations (seismic signals) through their trunks and feet to communicate across long distances. Elephants use contact calls to stay in touch with one another when they are out of one another's sight. In 2004, '''Joseph Soltis conducted a study to understand the low-frequency vocalization elephants used to communicate across short-distances. The research found that closely allied female elephants were more likely to produce ‘rumbles’ to other members at twice the rate of those who had lesser integrated members.''' Female elephants are able to remember and distinguish the contact calls of female family and bond group members from those of females outside of their extended family network. They can also distinguish between the calls of family units depending upon how frequently they came across them.

Joyce Poole, of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, Kenya, has demonstrated vocal learning and imitation in elephants of sounds made by each other and in the environment. She is beginning to research whether sounds made by elephants have dialects, a trait that is rare in the animal kingdom.