The same elephant calls can look like turn-taking or not, depending on the method
The central complication is methodological. When researchers analyzed the temporal organization of African savanna elephant vocalizations using several different frameworks, the frameworks did not agree: the work reports only limited evidence for turn-taking across individuals, and the choice of method shaped how the timing and coordination were classified and interpreted [2]. In plain terms, whether a pair of calls counts as a tidy exchange or as loosely overlapping noise depends on the rules you use to decide what counts as a response.
This is why the question of how interactive contingency is measured is not a technical footnote. Interactive contingency refers to how much one animal's call actually depends on, or is timed to, another's. If your method is strict about timing windows, you may find little evidence of contingency; if it is looser, the same recordings may look more conversational. The elephant evidence shows that conclusion and method are entangled, so a claim that elephants do or do not take turns should be read together with how the timing was analyzed [2].
Comparing elephants with other species is still an open project
The comparative picture is suggestive but incomplete. The broad survey of vocal turn-taking across mammals includes elephants in the same discussion as gibbons and other species, and it treats reaction-based timing as a plausible mechanism for coordinated duets in at least some species [1]. That supports placing elephant exchanges on a continuum of vocal coordination rather than treating them as a separate phenomenon.
However, the detailed elephant timing study focuses on African savanna elephants and does not itself compare their behavior with other species [2]. So the cross-species comparison rests on the broader review, while the fine-grained measurement caveats come from the elephant-specific work. Read together, they suggest elephants engage in call-and-response within a shared mammalian repertoire, but how their timing precision stacks up against gibbons or other turn-taking species has not been settled by a direct, like-for-like comparison in these studies.
What to keep in mind when you hear that elephants 'take turns'
A reasonable takeaway is that elephant call-and-response is real as a described pattern, but the strength of the turn-taking claim depends on the analytical lens. The elephant study's finding of only limited evidence for turn-taking across individuals, combined with its demonstration that frameworks change the classification of temporal coordination, means that confident statements about tightly interlocked elephant conversations outrun what the timing evidence supports [2].
The comparative literature adds context rather than resolution: it establishes that turn-taking and call-and-response are widespread among mammals and that reaction-based timing is one candidate mechanism for coordinated vocal exchanges [1]. What remains genuinely open is the direct, method-consistent comparison between elephants and other species, which would be needed to say how elephant contingency compares rather than merely that it exists.
Sources used in this answer
Four principles of bio-musicology
Turn-taking and call-and-response patterns occur across many mammalian species, from mice to elephants, with gibbon duets probably relying on reaction-based turn-taking.
Methodological Frameworks Influence the Classification and Interpretation of Temporal Coordination in African Savanna Elephant Vocalizations
Different methodological frameworks for analyzing African savanna elephant vocal timing lead to different classifications of temporal coordination, and the study found only limited evidence for turn-taking across individuals.