Asian Elephants Show Evidence of Mirror Self Recognition
Plotnik, J.M., de Waal, F.B.M. & Reiss, D. (2006). Self recognition in
an Asian elephant. PNAS. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0608062103
Elephants have joined a small, elite group of species, including humans, great apes and dolphins, that have the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror. This newly found presence of mirror self-recognition in elephants, previously predicted due to their well-known social complexity, is thought to relate to empathetic tendencies and the ability to distinguish oneself from others.
Researchers exposed three female elephants housed at the Bronx Zoo in New York to a jumbo-sized mirror measuring eight feet high by eight feet wide inside the elephants’ yard. During the exposure, the elephants tested their mirrored images by making repetitive body movements and using the mirror to inspect themselves, such as by moving their trunks to inspect the insides of their mouths, a part of the body they usually cannot see. Further, the animals did not react socially to their images, as many animals do, and did not seem to mistake their reflection for that of another elephant.
As a result of this study, the elephant now joins a cognitive elite among animals commensurate with its well-known complex social life and high level of intelligence. Although elephants are far more distantly related to us than the great apes, they seem to have evolved similar social and cognitive capacities making complex social systems and intelligence part of this picture. These parallels between humans and elephants suggest a convergent cognitive evolution possibly related to complex sociality and cooperation.