Rapid self-recognition ability in the cleaner fish.

ABSTRACT: Whether animals are self-aware has important implications for our approaches to both animal cognition and animal welfare. A landmark moment in animal cognition research was when great apes passed the mark-test and demonstrated mirror self-recognition (MSR). Animals that pass the mark-test are capable of visually self-recognising and considered to be self-aware. Other taxa, including a fish, the cleaner wrasse (cleaner fish: Labroides dimidiatus) have also now passed the mark-test, forcing a rethink of the mental and neurological requirements for MSR. Previous research has largely focused on which species can pass the mark-test, rather than the processes underlying MSR. Here, we marked mirror-naïve cleaner fish with an ecologically relevant mark resembling an ectoparasite and then undertook

SUBMITTER: Sogawa S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12647748 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature