[rquoter] Mirror test implies elephants self-aware WASHINGTON -- If you're Happy and you know it, pat your head. That, in a peanut shell, is how a 34-year-old female Asian elephant in the Bronx Zoo showed researchers that pachyderms can recognize themselves in a mirror - complex behavior observed in only a few other species. The test results suggest elephants - or at least Happy - are self-aware. The ability to distinguish oneself from others had been shown only in humans, chimpanzees and, to a limited extent, dolphins. That self-recognition may underlie the social complexity seen in elephants, and could be linked to the empathy and altruism that the big-brained animals have been known to display, said researcher Diana Reiss, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the Bronx Zoo. In a 2005 experiment, Happy faced her reflection in an 8-by-8-foot mirror and repeatedly used her trunk to touch an "X" painted above her eye. The elephant could not have seen the mark except in her reflection. Furthermore, Happy ignored a similar mark, made on the opposite side of her head in paint of an identical smell and texture, that was invisible unless seen under black light. "It seems to verify for us she definitely recognized herself in the mirror," said Joshua Plotnik, one of the researchers behind the study. Details appear this week on the Web site of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Still, two other zoo elephants, Maxine and Patty, failed to touch either the visible or invisible "X" marks on their heads in two runs of the experiment. But all three adult female elephants at the zoo behaved while in front of the jumbo mirror in ways that suggested they recognized themselves, said Plotnik, a graduate student at Emory University in Atlanta. Maxine, for instance, used the tip of her trunk to probe the inside of her mouth while facing the mirror. She also used her trunk to slowly pull one ear toward the mirror, as if she were using the reflection to investigate herself. The researchers reported not seeing that type of behavior at any other time. "Doing things in front of the mirror: that spoke volumes to me that they were definitely recognizing themselves," said Janine Brown, a research physiologist and elephant expert at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington. She was not connected with the study but expressed interest in conducting follow-up research. Gordon Gallup, the psychologist who devised the mark test in 1970 for use on chimps, called the results "very strong and very compelling." But he said additional studies on both elephants and dolphins were needed. "They really need to be replicated in order to be able to say with any assurance that dolphins and elephants indeed as species are capable of recognizing themselves. Replication is the cornerstone of science," said Gallup, a professor at the State University of New York at Albany, who provided advice to the researchers. The three Bronx Zoo elephants did not display any social behavior in front of the mirror, suggesting that each recognized the reflected image as itself and not another elephant. Many other animals mistake their mirror reflections for other creatures. That divergent species such as elephants and dolphins should share the ability to recognize themselves as distinct from others suggests the characteristic evolved independently, according to the study. Elephants and mammoths, now extinct, split from the last common ancestor they shared with mastodons, also extinct, about 24 million years ago. In a separate study also appearing this week on the scientific journal's Web site, researchers report finding fossil evidence of an older species that links modern elephants to even older ancestors. The likely "missing link" is a 27 million-year-old jaw fossil, found in Eritrea. [/rquoter]
The Rush Limbaugh Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 2006. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Elephant Happy begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, October 30. In a panic, they try to pull the trunk.
If you combine the fact elephants use their trunks like fingers, and the fact that my father always used to ask me to pull his finger with odifferous results, one could extrapolate a flatulance of dangerously monumental preportions.
I think elephants are self aware, they are very smart animals. However i do need to see more of this research to actually agree that it is proven. For instance i am not convinced about the doing things in front of a mirror part, that sounds very subjective. But the touching the mark, is a good way, they just need more elephants to do this, and to ignore such marks which cannot be seen, but can be smelled etc. So even though i believe elephants are selfaware, i do not think this research(or what i read about it) proves it.
I visited a church on Sunday and the minister talked about how there is something going on around the world with elephant behavior. He references some incident where some elephants had basically murdered some rhinos I think. He analogized it to juvenile delinquency. The theory is that so many of these juvenile elephants have had to grow up without parents lost to ivory hunters et al. The young elephants are left to their own resources way to early in life and have so resorted to destructive gang-like behavior. arno, as I recall you do some kind of work in wildlife biology. Have you heard these tales and of this theory?
I haven't heard of it. Also i doubt it (not calling the minister of your church a liar), but story's like these are usually exaggerated. I'll explain about the way elephants life. They life in big Breeding herds, which consist of a lot of youngsters and a lot of adult females. it is led by an matriarch, which is the dominant females. If an elephant gets shot by a hunter, its young does not grow up alone, it is raised by the rest of the herd. If the poacher kill all the adults of the herd, the young will not be able to survive. because they need the adults to find them water. So it is not the same as with humans that they are only raised by their parents, but they are raised by the entire herd. Also elephants are really relaxed animals I do not see them attacking a Rhino. They might charge a lion if they feel it is threatening their young, but usually Lions also get out of their way if a elephant herd is approaching (and believe me from my personal experience, i cannot blame them, not that i was ever charged by an elephant but I would definitely not like that). Also i'm not sure how an elephant can kill a rhino. they are huge and strong, but so is a rhino. it could happen, but that would be a incident, i do not see elephants killing rhino's on a regular occasion. Also i do not see why an elephant would do that. Since they have no use of trying to kill a rhino, and they can get hurt. However Elephants do hold a grudge, and if an elephant is shot by a human, and it didn't kill him, you do not want to be the next human he crosses. because you really have a problem. It is fun to see how young elephants do want to show of. At one point we were close to a herd, and one adult didn't like it and he sort of mock charged us (although he was like 30 metre's away from us, so it really was a mock). and when she turned around 3 younger elephants did the same(one was very small), it was great to see. I have done 4 months of research on elephant diet choice in Africa.
The National Geographic Channel had a show on just this subject. The theory, I think, was indeed that these young bulls had no "leadership" and ran amok after going into musth. They don't go into musth if there is an older, dominant male around. I don't think you can draw anything more from Elephant behavior any more than you can the story of the grasshopper and the ant. We're too different, but can you use it to tell a story of morailty... sure. Of course, I don't think he'd want to mention that anywhere from 25 to 50% of elephants engage in homosexual behavior.
Interesting, however i'm not sold on this theory. The problem is that Young elephants leave the breeding herd before they go in musth. And some go in a bachelor herd but not all Young elephant males join a bachelor herd, some do. And in those bachelor herd there are some more dominant males. but when they live alone they do not have a dominant male in their proximity. I know a Bull in Musth can be anoying, and agressive. but i still do not see them killing rhino's.(attacking humans in carr however is another story). Do you know the name of the show? i'm interested in watching it.
I think it was called, imaginatively enough... Killer Elephants. I think it might be part of their other shows but get labeled as their own piece.... I mean... it might be a part of "Wild" but shows up on the TV Guide as "Killer Elephants". I tried to find it on their website but no luck. It's been some time since I've seen the program but I believe their answer was to introduce some older males into the area. I don't remember if the show drew any conclusions or not. I think they left it as "We'll have to see if this works". It was an interesting show, in any case. There is obviously room for a lot more observation and study on aggressive elephants.
ok, i have seen some of these "Killer ..." shows. the problem is that with most of these shows they search for a good story, and not for a scientific story.(which ofcourse is logical because people want to see amazing things, and not scietific grounded things). I'll see if i can watch that show. however like i said i still have doubts about the whole thing. I also think it will probably depend on how big the area is. In a small nature reserve there can always happen strange things just because the animals life in such a small environment. thanks for the quick reaction btw
Arno_ed are you currently doing elephant research or was this in the past? You might have the coolest job on the board
Well i am actually finishing my study(biology), i'll probably be finished next July. from february untill june i was in South africa, to do research on the elephant and impala diet choice. I stayed in a house without fences in the middle of the greater kruger national park. So therefor i lived between the animals, when we looked out the window we there were so many animals, elephants, lions, hyena's and leopards etc. story: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=113595 Pictures: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=116539 But i do like my study, and i would like to continue working with animals, elephants were amazing.
arno_ed - you will find the following article interesting if you haven't already read it. It is too long to copy and paste - it is free if you register with the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?ex=1162443600&en=dcced78fea4ea342&ei=5070
Thanks that was very interesing. It is a fact that elephants get traumatised if they see their family members killed. In Kruger elephants ran away from helicopters because they knew that was the way people shot elephants. I know that elephants that are traumatised by humans can be dangerous for humans(like i said they hold a grudge), i just don't really see the killing of rhino's. but who knows maybe i'm wrong. But i worked in Africa with other researchers and we discussed the elephant problems a lot, and i never heard of them killing rhino's Also there are a lot of problems with Elephants and humans because there just is not enough space. and elephants like the food humans make o their fields. And humans do not like it when their crops have been raid during the night. in my 4 months there i heard of a couple of people on different ocasions being killed by elephants. You have to treat them right, and know how to handle them. Also traumatised elephants are dangerous even for experts. The problem remains that there is not enough space in the world for both nature and humans(but that is an other discussion).
I saw a show where they played a recorded "trumpeting" of a dead elephant to some of it's surviving relatives and it totally freaked them out. They also recognize the skulls and and bones of dead relatives. Amazing stuff.
