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Natural world: Can horses recognise themselves in mirrors?!
Image source, Getty Images
Researchers at the University of Pisa in Italy have discovered that horses have some sort of self-awareness and appear able to recognise themselves in mirrors.
According to a study in the journal Animal Cognition, they say they've found that horses can even use the information in their reflection to see if their face is dirty and needs cleaning!
It comes after an experiment found eleven out of 14 horses tried to rub coloured marks off their own cheeks after they discovered them in a mirror.
This makes horses the only animals - alongside primates - found to be able to recognise themselves in this way.
Self-recognition has been detected in a few other species, such as elephants, bottlenose dolphins, magpies and a small fish called a cleaner wrasse, but because there were only a few animals in each of those groups that showed self-recognition, scientists couldn't definitely say whether the species as a whole had the ability.
What did the study find?
Image source, Baragli, P., Scopa, C., Maglieri, V. et al.
Paolo Baragli and his colleagues put a large mirror in an indoor arena and let 14 horses loose in the space, one at a time.
At first, all the horses treated their reflection as though it were another horse. Some tried to play with the "other horse", and some were afraid or even aggressive towards it, says Baragli.
However, after this initial reaction, most horses changed their behaviour and began investigating.
Eleven of the horses checked behind the mirror and watched their reflections as they moved their heads around. Some even stuck out their tongues at the reflection!
The researchers then used medical ultrasound gel to mark the 11 horses' cheeks with an "X". The horses can't see the gel except in a reflection. The team used transparent gel at first, but they later added colour to the gel to make it stand out against the horse's skin.
When the X marks were coloured, the horses stood in front of the mirror rubbing their faces with their legs for five times longer than when the X marks were transparent.
The team believe it is clear that the horses recognised from their reflection that they had something on their own faces, and they wanted to either investigate it or remove it.
What do others think?
Not everyone is convinced.
Psychologist Gordon Gallup at the University at Albany in New York developed the mirror self-recognition test in 1970, which is a technique he came up with to find out whether an animal is able to visually recognise themselves.
Image source, Baragli, P., Scopa, C., Maglieri, V. et al.
Talking about the results from the horse study, he said he disagrees that the horses were really investigating their mirror images as themselves.
"None of the horses spontaneously used the mirror to investigate parts of their bodies that could not be seen without a mirror," Gallup told the New Scientist Magazine.
However Baragli is confident with his results - which are based on 22 hours' worth of videos, which include many examples of horses looking at themselves, rubbing their faces and checking their faces in the mirror again.
"They're either trying to explore the mark on their face or trying to get it off," he says. "It's hard to imagine there's any other reason for this behaviour."
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.