Animal Magnetism? Wild Special Powers -- ABC News
Another German research team has made the equally surprising discovery that magpies have a sense of self-recognition when looking in a mirror.
Until now, this characteristic "human" capability has been seen clearly only in apes, though also, as the team notes, "at least suggestively in dolphins and elephants." It also notes that the magpie findings "suggest that essential components of human self-recognition have evolved independently in different vertebrate classes with a separate evolutionary history." Helmut Prior at Germany's Goethe University in Frankfurt and colleagues described the magpie experiments in the August issue of PLoS Biology. The birds were given distinctive marks they could not see directly but could see in the mirror.
The way a bird dealt with the spot or other marking by scratching or removing it showed it saw the mirror image as reflecting itself and not simply as being another bird. While the scientists conclude that their finding shows "that elaborate cognitive skills arose independently" in birds and mammals, they warn against reading too much into that implication.
Another German research team has made the equally surprising discovery that magpies have a sense of self-recognition when looking in a mirror.
Until now, this characteristic "human" capability has been seen clearly only in apes, though also, as the team notes, "at least suggestively in dolphins and elephants." It also notes that the magpie findings "suggest that essential components of human self-recognition have evolved independently in different vertebrate classes with a separate evolutionary history." Helmut Prior at Germany's Goethe University in Frankfurt and colleagues described the magpie experiments in the August issue of PLoS Biology. The birds were given distinctive marks they could not see directly but could see in the mirror.
The way a bird dealt with the spot or other marking by scratching or removing it showed it saw the mirror image as reflecting itself and not simply as being another bird. While the scientists conclude that their finding shows "that elaborate cognitive skills arose independently" in birds and mammals, they warn against reading too much into that implication.
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