In hours of underwater video footage from the New York Aquarium, a beluga whale named Natasha stretches her neck, nods, bobs her head and shakes her head in front of a two-way mirror. His daughter Maris also does the same. According to a new study published in PLOS One, both animals show behavioral signs of mirror self-recognition – a cognitive ability that has long been considered a marker of self-awareness, and one that has never been previously documented in beluga whales.
If the results hold true, belugas join a remarkably short list. The mirror self-recognition test (MSR) has been passed, with varying degrees of confidence, by humans (starting around age two), a handful of great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and somewhat controversially gorillas), Asian elephants, bottlenose dolphins, probably magpies, possibly orcas, and, if you can believe it, a cleaner wrasses. That’s it. Neither dogs, nor cats, nor monkeys. We assumed that many species were self-aware, tested them, and failed.
looking at the mirror
So what exactly is this test, and what does it want to tell us?
The process is as follows: While the animal is not looking, the researcher places a mark at a location that it can only see through reflection. A mirror is placed in front of the animal while the researchers watch. If the animal touches or examines the mark while looking at its reflection, it understands that the figure in the mirror is the same one. The test is intuitive and easy to perform – and almost no species passes.
Why is this a test of self-awareness in the first place? According to psychologist Gordon Gallup (who invented the test in 1970), the logic is that in order to use a mirror as a tool to observe your body, you need to have a mental representation of yourself as a distinct entity. In this statement, a piece of silver glass can open a lot of cognitive doors.
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