Mirror-mark tests performed on jackdaws reveal potential methodological problems in the use of stickers in avian mark-test studies.

ABSTRACT: Some animals are capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror, which is considered to be demonstrated by passing the mark test. Mirror self-recognition capacity has been found in just a few mammals having very large brains and only in one bird, the magpie (Pica pica). The results obtained in magpies have enormous biological and cognitive implications because the fact that magpies were able to pass the mark test meant that this species is at the same cognitive level with great apes, that mirror self-recognition has evolved independently in the magpie and great apes (which diverged 300 million years ago), and that the neocortex (which is not present in the bird's brains) is not a prerequisite for mirror self-recognition as previously believed. Here, we have replicated the experimental desig

SUBMITTER: Soler M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3903501 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature