National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Photo: Elephants Recognize Selves in Mirror, Study Says


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In an experiment, an Asian elephant named Happy repeatedly touched her trunk to a white X painted on her forehead while looking in a mirror. This suggests that the animal recognized herself in the reflection, scientists say, making the elephant one of the few animals known to be capable of self-recognition.

Photograph courtesy of Joshua Plotnik, Frans de Waal, and Diana Reiss/PNAS