It’s a sweet action: The animal keepers at the Werribee Open Range Zoo near Melbourne in Australia want to keep their protégés happy. That’s why they equip the animals’ enclosures with mirrors. The mirror immediately arouses the interest of the koalas and is inspected curiously. Koalas have a keen sense of smell and their eyesight is poor. So this animal inspects the mirror nose first.
In the reptile area, the turtle curiously explores what the reflection shows it. And the mirrors also cause a lot of fuss for the other animals.
But do the animals recognize themselves in the mirror? And what does that mean for your self-perception? Consciousness research relies on mirrors to find out whether animals have self-confidence. In the so-called mirror test, a spot on the animal’s body is first marked in color. The researchers then observe whether the animal interacts with this part of the body in front of the mirror. If it examines the colored spot more closely, this could indicate that it recognizes itself and has an idea of itself. Such behavior has so far been observed in elephants, corvids, dolphins and some species of monkeys. Recently, researchers at the Max Planck Institute have also found it in cleaner wrasses.
It is therefore possible that the monkey recognizes itself here. One can only speculate whether the other animals feel the same way. However, it is evident that the mirrors were received with great curiosity in most species.