Elephants display a form of communication that was believed to be unique to humans

People have long said that language and deliberate gesturing set us apart. Apes sometimes show similar skills, but most animals seem to signal without a clear plan. Elephants, however, have now been shown to communicate with clear goals in mind.

In the new study, researchers show that African savannah elephants use intentional gestures to ask for food from people who are paying attention.

The work adds a new species to the short list of animals that are known to communicate on purpose, not just by reflex.

The study was led by Vesta Eleuteri from the Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna. The team worked with partners in Zimbabwe who care for semi-captive elephants.

Intentional communication

Scientists use the word intentionality to describe communication used to reach a goal. It is not a reflex or a simple reaction.

“First-order” intentionality means an animal aims to change what someone does. “Second-order” intentionality means trying to change what someone knows or thinks.

How the test worked

Seventeen semi-captive elephants took part in simple sessions that looked like snack time. Each elephant saw two trays set about 10 feet (3 meters) apart, one with six apples and one empty.

Handlers waited while a familiar person stood still and watched the elephant for 40 seconds. Then the person delivered either all the apples, one apple, or the empty tray, and watched for another 40 seconds.

The team logged 38 distinct gesture types and 313 total gestures, called tokens, across all trials. The elephants were recorded from the side so the direction of each gesture was clear.

The setups followed clean rules. Elephants could not reach the trays, and the observer stayed visibly attentive so the animals had someone to address.

Intentional elephant communication

The elephants gestured almost only when a person was present and looking at them. They aimed their actions at the person or the apples, not at random objects.

They kept gesturing when they got only part of what they wanted, like one apple instead of six. When they got nothing, they tried new gestures rather than repeat the same move.

“We find goal-directed intentionality across many elephant gestures and reveal that elephants, like apes, assess the communicative effectiveness of their gesturing,” wrote Eleuteri, who was lead author on the study. The findings mark a clear step beyond reflexive signaling.

Why elephant communication matters

Intentional use of signals is a key feature of language. It shows flexible control and an ability to monitor whether a message is getting through.

Elephants live in complex, fission-fusion social structure groups that split and rejoin, which can reward flexible communication. A classic analysis of African elephants described multiple social tiers that shift with time and conditions.

How it fits with other research

Earlier work found that African elephants can understand a human pointing gesture to locate hidden food. In one lab study, most elephants identified the food bucket correctly when a person pointed to it.

Great apes show a related pattern in their own communication. Orangutans adjust whether they repeat or switch gestures based on how well a person seems to understand them, as shown by a study with captive orangutans.

Not all results match across tasks or species. In a separate study, Asian elephants struggled to use human visual cues alone to find hidden food, suggesting that there are differences that may reflect context, species, or sensory priorities.

The design asked for clear evidence of goal directed behavior when elephants communicate. Audience matters, persistence matters, and elaboration matters.

Elephants met each of these tests. They produced gestures to an attentive person, kept going when only partly satisfied, and switched tactics when ignored.

Studying how elephants communicate

The trials balanced left and right tray placement and kept timing consistent. Each animal faced all three outcomes on different days.

Inter-rater reliability (IRR), which measures the consistency of ratings or judgments made by two or more independent evaluators of the same target or phenomenon, was high for both the number and types of gestures coded. That helps rule out observer bias.

The study shows first-order intentionality. It does not prove second-order intentionality, which would require changing what someone knows or believes.

The elephants were semi-captive, not fully wild. Future work should check how free-ranging elephants use similar gestures with other elephants.

Where biology points next

One open question is whether elephants point for each other with trunk motions in the wild. Another is how vision, touch, and smell combine during social exchanges.

Their sense of smell is exceptionally strong at the genetic level. A comparative genomics study found African elephants have an unusually large number of olfactory receptor genes, which supports rich multisensory communication.

Clearer models of intentional signaling help in robotics and human-computer interactions. Systems that respond only when users are attentive and that adapt after failure tend to work better.

The work also informs conservation. Understanding how elephants communicate goals can improve welfare in human managed settings that rely on safe, low stress interactions.

The study is published in Royal Society Open Science.

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