Cross Breeds

What animals recogonize themselves in a mirror?

How many different species of animals have demonstrated the ability to recogonize themself in a mirror? I know my Border Collie does. I did a test once, by putting a clip in his hair, on top of his head. When he walked in front of the mirror, he looked at himself, and started pawing his head to get the clip off.

Public Comments

1. i think only dolphins and monkeys can
2. I've seen some papers that have claimed that only the higher primates (i.e. chimps, gorillas, humans) have this ability - however, as you yourself have demonstrated, I have seen many other critters that allegedly don't have this ability display behaviour that indicates that they are also 'self-aware'. One problem is that it's difficult to prove that if an animal reacts to a reflection, that it is because it realizes that the reflection is 'them' or not. Even more difficult is proving that an animal that doesn't react at all is not reacting because it realizes it's a reflection, or if it doesn't react because it just doesn't care.
3. Humans, chimps, dolphins, some whales. Also I've seen some cats who clearly recognize themselves, and a few dogs. Both are rare. I've seen one parrot who knew it was himself, and not another bird. I use to own one ferret who appeared to know it was him, and not one of the others. I've owned about 25 ferrets, and only the one ferret appeared to recognize himself. ~Garnet Homesteading/Farming over 20 years Active wildlife study over 40 years
4. I heve seen birds, my parrot, cats and dogs flirting and figthing with their reflected image, as you can see in "funnyest animals" Discovery Ch. tv
5. parrots and monkeys
6. I think that part of the problem with working out which animals can recognise themselves in a mirror is that an animal has no possible way of knowing what it looks like, itself. Humans know what they look like, so they recognise themselves in a mirror, because they've been brought up being shown themselves in a mirror all their life and being told, "This is you". If a human had never seen a mirror and saw themselves in one at 30 years of age, they would not immediately know it was themselves either. Because animals are likely to react to their reflection as being another animal straight away, I believe they need to have some training about it the same way we 'explain' it to humans from childhood. If the mirror test is going to be taken seriously as a test for animal self-awareness, an animal can't just be put in front of a mirror, out of the blue, and a few tests done without trying to teach the animal that it is themself in the mirror. Animals can be taught so many things, and it's likely that most animals won't recognise themselves immediately, but with a bit of explaining in a way the animal can understand, it is likely (I think) that many animals could recognise themselves after they have initially done so. In other words, they most likely won't recognise themselves the first time, but I believe many would do so with the appropriate 'explanation' that they could understand, and then would do so from that point onwards. For example, one test is to put something on the animal's forehead and see if it recognises that as being itself. To me, if even a person didn't know that mirrors existed, they would not just automatically think, "Oh, that's a reflection of myself". They'd be more likely to think that there's another person there, also getting something put on their forehead (bearing in mind that the person does not know what they look like, themself). If an animal doesn't recognise themselves under these circumstances, a massively long bow is drawn to say that the animal doesn't have self-awareness. I grew up with numerous animals of all types, and I know they are way more intelligent than a lot of people give them credit for. In fact, I pity people who never get to know animals well enough to understand that. In the case of the bird on the following website, it knew that it's reflection in the mirror was a reflection of itself, and not another budgie. If a bird the size of a budgie can recognise itself in a mirror, I think there are a lot of animals that can also have that same understanding. Here's a short excerpt from the website, "On another occasion he was in front of the dressing mirror and said, “Puck’s a parakeet. Puck’s in the mirror. Puck’s a mirror parakeet.”". If you read the whole story, it's really interesting to realise how much an animal can understand. It's just that a lot of animals can't talk, so it isn't obvious how much they know. Because this bird could talk/make up sentences etc., it was obvious to everyone around it how much it understood. (I fully understand how smart hand-raised birds are, as I have owned many of them, and a lot of them learn the meaning of words, even if they don't talk). Anyway, here is the website about the budgie I was talking about. It was in the Guinness Book of Records for being the bird that can say the most words. http://birdwithmostwords.com/ It's a great story, if you want to read it, but I'll warn you it's reallyyyyyy sad at the end, so keep something handy for tear-wiping purposes. Sorry this is so long, but it's a subject dear to my heart. (:
7. Like a lot of other posters have said, it's rather difficult to determine if certain animals recogonize themselves. Certain experiments have been done on certain apes and dolphins that concluded that these animals do indeed recogonize themselves. Other animals may have different ways of showing it, but in the end, we don't know yet. Only the animals do!