Mirror Test

The mirror test measures animal self-awareness. To pass, a creature must recognise itself in a mirror. Only 13 species, including humans, have so far.

In the test, scientists place a coloured mark on an animal’s forehead and put it in front of a mirror. Some animals ignore the mirror, others consider it a different creature. A small few will adjust themselves while looking in the mirror and try to remove the mark. Such a response indicates they know the creature in the mirror is them, and act accordingly. 

Gordon Gallup Jr. invented the test in 1970. He put chimpanzees in a room with a mirror. At first, they threatened their reflection but, after a time, started grooming and pulling faces. When Gallup put a red mark on one ear then removed the mirror, the chimpanzees continued to scratch and touch that ear. The test proves animal self-recognition and suggests self-awareness.

 Animals that have passed:

• humans
• chimpanzees
• bonobos
• orangutans
• gorillas
• bottlenose dolphins
• orcas
• Asian elephants
• Eurasian Magpies
• pigeons
• cleaner wrasses (a tropical reef cleaner fish)

Most gorillas fail the test. Eye contact is threatening for gorillas, so they may deliberately avoid looking at the mirror for long enough to recognise themselves.

Only one elephant, an Asian elephant in 2006 at Bronx Zoo, identified the X on its forehead after looking in a mirror. Elephant cognition evolved on a similar path to primates. 

Magpies pass every time. The corvid family, which includes ravens and crows, have the same brain-body ratio as primates. While Eurasian magpies are among the most intelligent animals on the planet, their intelligence evolved from a different source than humans and primates. 

In 1980, behavioural psychologist BF Skinner found pigeons could pass the test after extensive, scaffolded training. Untrained pigeons do not.

Human babies do not pass the test until between 12 and 24 months old. Studies show a discrepancy across different environments.

What do these creatures have in common? Animals that pass the test have a high body-brain ratio, advanced perception and cooperative social structures. 

The mirror test is not the only indicator of self-awareness. Dogs, for example, rely on scent, so instantly discount any image from being them because of the lack of associated smell. That doesn’t mean they are necessarily self-aware, but if they were, a mirror-test wouldn’t tell you.

Without self-recognition, however, there cannot be self-awareness. Distinguishing the animals who pass from their peers is a significant step in unravelling the mystery of consciousness.

Sources: Animal Cognition, Brittanica, Science Daily.

Bears

Bears (scientific name Ursidae) are the largest land animals that eat meat. Mammals of the carniforma order, they live in Eurasia and the Americas. Despite their size and killing power, most bears are omnivores who forage more than they hunt. There are nine species of bear.

Bears evolved over 10 million years ago. Larger, older species like the North American short-faced bear and the European cave bear died out in the Ice Age. Their closest relatives are raccoons and dogs. 

Bears have shaggy coats, powerful jaws and sharp claws. Unable to run for long periods, they seldom chase their prey. Instead, bears rely on foraging or killing helpless animals like seal pups or salmon. They have no natural predators and do not fear humans. What they lack in eyesight and hearing, bears make up for in scent. They do not distinguish between night and day and sleep at odd hours. In wintertime, most bears hibernate, occasionally venturing from their dens when snowfall lapses. The polar bear is the only species who stay outside all year long.

Bears mate once every two years. Males court females in the mating season but leave when the cubs are born. Bears stay with their mothers until one year old.

The American black bear is the most widespread species. They are adaptable scavengers and tree climbers who remain widespread today. Regional varieties include the cinnamon bear and the so-called Spirit, or Kermode bear (pictured) of British Columbia, of whom one in every ten have white fur.

Grizzly bears are the American variety of the brown bear. Unlike their smaller cousins, they are too big to climb most trees and owe their size to a salmon-rich diet. Grizzlies can kill bulls with a single blow of their paws. The Kodiak bear, a subspecies found in Alaska, can reach up to 600 kilograms. It is the largest bear. 

The spectacled bear is the only bear in South America. Reclusive by nature, they inhabit the Andes Mountains and owe their name to brown rings by their eyes. 

The Eurasian brown bear once inhabited Europe, Asia and Morocco but now lives only in isolated forests and mountains. Humans hunted brown bears and taught them to dance at circuses. Though they are highly tamable and eager to please, bears hide their expressions, meaning angry outbursts take their captors by surprise. Wojtek, a Syrian Brown Bear, served in the Polish Army in WW2 and reached the rank of corporal.

Asiatic black bears or ‘moon bears’, so-called because of the mark on their chest, inhabit the Himalayas and the mountains of East Asia. They are far smaller than the American black bear and make expert tree climbers.

Sun Bears are the smallest species of bear. They live in the rainforests of Southeast Asia and subsist mainly from honey and insects.

Sloth bears live in India. Though small and slow, they have sharp claws and can be highly aggressive, particularly towards humans. In the English-speaking world, the most famous Sloth Bear is Baloo from the Jungle Book. 

Giant pandas are a small and highly specialized population native to a remote part of China. Unlike other bears, they are entirely herbivorous and eat only bamboo. Biologists considered them bears until the 1950s when they determined they part of the raccoon family. Recent scholarship has reclassified them as bears.

Polar bears are the only entirely carnivorous bears. Living on the Arctic Circle, they are the most accomplished swimmers in the bear family and hunt mainly seals and walrus pups. They are the largest carnivorous mammals. Due to lack of historical exposure, polar bears do not fear humans and are the only bears who will actively hunt them. Other bears attack humans only out of fear or desperation. 

Due to their power and unique appearance, bears feature heavily in human folklore. The indigenous peoples of northern Eurasia, from the Ainu of Japan to the Sami of Scandinavia viewed them as sacred, as did many Native American and First Nation peoples. The ancient Greeks believed the constellations Ursa Major and Minor were nymphs transformed into bears. As it exists in both Eurasia and North America, the associations of bears with the ‘cosmic hunt’ is likely over 13,000 years old.

Sources: New Illustrated Animal Kingdom Volume 4, World Wildlife Fund

See Also:

• Carnivorans
• The Ainu
• The Polar Bear Invasion of 2019

The Polar Bear Invasion of 2019

In February 2019, 52 polar bears descended on a Russian settlement in the Arctic Circle. They ransacked rubbish dumps and overran the town in search of food, walking through schoolyards and open corridors. The village of Belushya Guba declared a national emergency.

Novaya Zemlya, meaning ‘New Land’ is an island chain around the size of Cuba in the Russian Arctic. Its 3,000 inhabitants include those in the military, oil and gas industry and their families. 1,987 of them live in Belushya Guba, its largest settlement. Since the 1950s, the Soviet and Russian governments have used the island for airfields, oil extraction and nuclear testing.

Polar bears live on the island’s coasts. During the summer they converge on the southern end to hunt seals but usually avoid the inland settlements. As global temperatures increase and ice sheets melt, the bears stray closer and closer to human settlements. Specialist patrols keep the polar bears at bay and scare them off when they get too close. Polar bears are endangered and under Russian law and it is illegal to kill them or shoot them with live rounds. Whilst polar bears are the only bears to eat only meat, and the only species known to purposely hunt humans, they rarely attack humans unless acting out of fear or desperation. 

Fifty-two bears converged on the outskirts on Belushya Guba in December 2018. Patrols tried to ward them off with vehicles, warning shots and dogs but, undeterred, the bears marched on. By February the ursine ‘invaders’ entered the town. They gathered at local rubbish dumps and scavenged for food as the town’s inhabitants locked their doors and hid inside. On the 16th of February, the provincial government declared an emergency as the bears roamed free through the streets and schoolyards. While the inhabitants cowered in terror, the polar bears amazingly left them be with no reported casualties. Governemnt watchdogs denied a town request to shoot the bears.

Polar bears need sea ice to hunt seals. 2019 was the hottest year on record and, as the Arctic Ice sheet continues to melt, the bears search for alternative food sources. Polar bears are massive animals however and, unlike their smaller cousins, cannot sustain themselves on human scraps. A high protein diet is essential to their survival.

A team of specialists eventually fended off the bears and the town set up more rigorous patrols and bear-proof fences around schools and kindergartens. Though not matching the ‘invasion’ of February, polar bears continued to wonder into villages throughout Novaya Zemyla.

Sources: BBC, BGR, Polar Bear Science, RT

See Also:

• Amazon Burning
• The 2010s
• Carnivorans
  • Bears

Carnivorans

Order Carnivora (coined 1821) is a biological classification including many species of mammals. Despite its name, which means ‘flesh devourers’ in Latin, not all ‘carnivorans’ are ‘carnivores’. Many are omnivorous, while some eat only plants. In terms of biological classification, it is an ‘order’, below class (mammals), and above family, species and subspecies. Their last common ancestor was a pangolin like creature who lived over 60 million years ago in the supercontinent of Laurasia.  

Carnivorans often have thick fur, sharp teeth and higher than average intelligence. Their adaptability allowed them to thrive when other creatures went extinct. Carnivorans are native to every continent except Australasia and the Antarctic and often fill the role of the apex predator. Some live strictly on land, others at sea, some – like otters – live on both.

Carnivora has two suborders – Feliforma and Carniforma, to which cats and dogs belong respectively. They branched off 42 million years ago.

A bull Elephant seal, the largest carnivoran species.

Caniforma encompasses those mammals with irretractable claws, long snouts and sharp teeth, and seals. Most eat meat. Some, like bears, are omnivores, some like pandas, are herbivores. Caniforms, whose name means ‘dog-like predators’ first evolved from a small marten-like creature who climbed trees and hunted in the forests of North America. 40 million years ago, some caniforms took to the sea and evolved fins in the place of paws, becoming the first seals. Caniforma’s families include:

• Canidae (wolves, dogs, coyotes, jackals, foxes etc)
• Ursidae (bears, including the giant panda)
• Mephitidae (skunks and stink badgers)
• Ailuridae (red pandas)
• Procynodae (raccoons, coatis and kinkajous)
• Mustelidae (weasels, badgers, otters, martens etc)
• Phocidae (earless seals)
• Otariidae (eared seals, including sea lions)
• Obobenidae (walruses)

A fossa, a Euplirid found only in Madagascar.

Feliforma means ‘cat-like predators’. Its species are lither and have shorter snouts and fewer teeth than caniforms, better eyesight than smell and retractable claws. Feliforma evolved in the Old World and today most species live in the tropics of Africa and Southeast Asia. Many of its branches are now extinct. Those that remain include:

• Felidae (cats big and small)
• Nandiniidae (African palm civets)
• Prionodontidae (Asiatic linsangs)
• Viverridae (civets, genets and oyans)
• Hyenidae (Hyenas and aardwolves)
• Herspitidae (mongooses and meerkats)
• Eupliridae (Fossa and Malagasy mongooses)

Humans, by the way, belong to a different order entirely. As members of the primate family, we are more closely related to rodents and marsupials than any creature in the order Carnivora. 

Sources: Encyclopaedia Brittanica, New Illustrated Animal Kingdom Volume 4

See Also:

• Bears

What Makes an Animal Domesticatable?

Why don’t we farm hippopotamuses for their meat? They are fat enough. Why can we ride horses but not zebras? Why did humans domesticate some animals but fail with others?

In Chapter 9 of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Zebras and Unhappy Marriages, Jared Diamond describes the ‘Anna Karenina Principle.’ That is: ‘Domesticatable animals are alike; every undomesticable animal is undomesticable in its own way.’ For an animal to be domesticated it must meet a strict set of criteria. Any animal not meeting them cannot be domesticated.

1. Diet. Domestic animals must be fed en masse for cheap. Carnivores and picky herbivores who cannot eat grass or grain fall short.
2. Growth rate. Domesticated animals must grow quickly to be worth raising. While elephants and gorillas take 15 years to reach full size, a cow takes two.
3. Problems of captive breeding. Many animals refuse to mate in captivity and thus cannot be bred.
4. Nasty disposition. Aggressive animals cannot be domesticated. We cannot ride zebras, for example, because zebras are wild and vicious. In zoos they bite more people than tigers. Wild hippopotamuses kill more people than crocodiles.
5. Tendency to panic. Being fast, unpredictable and easily panicked, deer and antelope are too difficult to herd. Reindeer are an exception.
6. Social structure. Domesticated animals need to be comfortable in large groups and a rigid hierarchy which humans can take over. Antelope and bighorn sheep are too territorial and will fight each other instead of cooperating as domestic sheep and cattle do.

Domesticated is not the same as tamed. Many animals can be tamed, that is behaviourally modified to cooperate with humans. Domestication requires selective breeding of a new species which cooperates with and serves humans. It is how a wild boar becomes a pig.  So while elephants and horses can be used for transport and warfare, elephants are too difficult to breed in captivity and therefore cannot be domesticated. Tame elephants have to be captured from the wild.

Of the 148 species of large herbivores which could provide food and/or transport to humans, only 14 are domesticated:

• sheep (descended from the mouflon sheep, Middle East)
• goat (bezoar goat, Middle East)
• cow (aurochs, Eurasia/North Africa)
• pig (wild boar, Eurasia/North Africa)
• horse (Ukraine)
• Arabian camel (Middle East/ North Africa)
• Bactrian camel (Central Asia)
• llama/alpaca (guanaco, Andes)
• donkey (African wild ass, North Africa)
• reindeer (northern Eurasia)
• water buffalo (China/Southeast Asia)
• yak (Himalayas)
• Bali cattle (banteng, Southeast Asia)
• mithan/gayal (guar, India/Southeast Asia)

Dogs, although not ‘large’ or herbivorous, tick the boxes. Jared Diamond argues that, like pigs, dogs are in fact omnivores.

The benefits of domestication are many. Some of the above serve as beasts of burden, others a source of clothing or milk. All could be eaten, allowing for bigger populations. Warriors on horseback held a massive advantage over those on foot.

There is a correlation between where these species originated and where human civilization developed. 13 of the 14 domestic herbivores originated in Eurasia and only one (llamas) in South America. Australia, North America and southern Africa had none.  It is no coincidence that five domesticatable species originated in the Middle East, the cradle of civilization. However, it was not only animals; the distribution of wild grains was also a deciding factor in where the first civilizations were born.

Sources: Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies