Wed, Aug 20, 2008
Magpies
Posted to Current Events category
This is cool. There are only a few species that are known to recognise themselves in mirrors (as opposed to thinking they are seeing another animal). Humans, apes, dolphins and elephants are all large brained mammals.
Now scientists have shown that european magpies can recognise themselves in mirrors, even though they have very small brains by mammalian standards, and a very different brain organization.
The test was pretty straightforward. They put little stickers on the birds, on their necks under their chins where they could not see them directly. If there was no mirror, the birds did nothing. If the sticker was black, and blended into the feathers, the birds did nothing. If the sticker was a contrasting color that the bird could notice in the mirror, it pecked or scratched it off, then stopped pecking or scratching.
So they clearly knew the bird in the mirror was them.
I wonder if magpies have a way to tell each other: "Hey, dude. You have a shmutz on your chin"?
Equally cool: there are links in the comments of the item I linked that lead to scientific records of magpies (both european and american) having funerals when their neighbors die.
The aliens are among us.