Do animals recognise themselves in mirrors?

Admit it, you've probably tried showing your dog or cat a mirror, just to see what would happen. And chances are they either completely ignored it, or freaked out thinking it was another dog or cat to attack - or play with. There's no shortage ofadorable videos starring puppies versus mirrors, but the antics don't really explain whether an animal can actually recognise itself in the mirror.



At first the chimps treated their reflections as they would another chimp in a social setting. But within a few days, their behaviour changed. "They’d use the mirror to look at the inside of their mouths, to make faces at the mirror, to inspect their genitals, to remove mucous from the corner of their eyes," Galluptold Chelsea Wald at Nautilus.

In other words, the chimps appeared to have learnt to recognise their reflections. To be sure, Gallup tested this notion by going one step further - each animal was gently anesthetised and received some markings in the shape of red paint on one of their eyebrow ridges, and a tip of the ear. "It seemed pretty obvious that if I saw myself in a mirror with marks on my face, that I’d reach up and inspect those marks," said Gallup.

The removable red dye couldn't be smelled or felt by touch (the team actually tested this by painting their own faces first and waiting for 24 hours to see if they could feel it). Once returned to their mirrors, the chimps went on to do exactly what Gallup predicted - they inspected their new markings, even rubbing them with their hands and then checking their fingers to see if whatever had been painted on them was coming off.