Mirrors and Animals
Only a few animal species have been shown to have the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror, most of them mammals. Experiments have found that the following animals are able to pass the mirror test:
- All great apes:
- Humans. Humans tend to fail the mirror test until they are about 18 months old, or what psychoanalysts call the "mirror stage".
- Bonobos
- Chimpanzees
- Orangutans
- Gorillas. Initially, it was thought that gorillas did not pass the test, but there are now several well-documented reports of gorillas (such as Koko) passing the test.
- Bottlenose dolphins
- Orcas
- Elephants
- European Magpies
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Famous quotes containing the words mirrors and, mirrors and/or animals:
“Our age is very cheap and intelligible. Unroof any house, and you shall find it. The well-being consists in having a sufficiency of coffee and toast, with a daily newspaper; a well glazed parlor, with marbles, mirrors and centre-table; and the excitement of a few parties and a few rides in a year.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Error has made animals into men; is truth in a position to make men into animals again?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)