The elephant has to step off a mat before it can give a stick, tied to the mat, to its trainer. Scientists say this shows that the elephant recognizes its body is an obstacle, hinting at self-understanding. (Josh Plotnik/Rachel Dale)


“There are many camps that argue about what this all means,” Joshua Plotnik, a visiting psychology professor at the City University of New York's Hunter College and founder of the nonprofit Think Elephants International, told The Washington Post. Some scientists view a successful mirror test as a sign that animals have self-awareness, linked to complex concepts like empathy. And if an animal can't pass the test, well, then it simply can't be self-aware.

Plotnik, who worked on Happy's mirror test, took a more diplomatic approach. It is more likely, he said, that self-awareness exists on a continuum, with varying levels of animal understanding. What's more, for some species the mirror test simply is a bad exam — particularly for those that rely less on visual senses, unlike humans or magpies.






This demonstration of an elephant's body awareness was different, Plotnik said, than a cat licking the fur attached to its haunches. That behavior may not show any thought more labored than, say, a reaction to an itch. The problem solving in the new study was a few notches more complex. If an elephant lacked an awareness of its immense body, Plotnik argued, the animal would keep trying to exchange the stick while standing on the mat. Or the elephant would simply give up.



Those are human solutions, Plotnik said, to a problem that also involves another intelligent species. He said his research could inform what we know about elephants' need for space, for themselves as well as their family groups.

“The more we understand about elephant behavior,” he said, “the better we will be able to come up with conservation strategies that work.”

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