happy

In an experiment, an Asian elephant named Happy repeatedly touched her trunk to a white X painted on her forehead while looking in a mirror. This suggests that the animal recognized herself in the reflection, scientists say, making the elephant one of the few animals known to be capable of self-recognition.Photograph courtesy of Joshua Plotnik, Frans de Waal, and Diana Reiss/PNAS

Elephants Recognize Selves in Mirror, Study Says

John Roachfor National Geographic News
October 30, 2006
Elephants can recognize themselves in mirrors, according to a new study. Humans, great apes, and dolphins are the only other animals known to possess this form of self-awareness.
All of these animals also lead socially complex lives and display empathy—concern and understanding of another's feelings—researchers report.
"There seems to be some correlation between an ability to recognize oneself in a mirror and higher forms of social complexity," said Joshua Plotnik, a graduate student in psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
To assess elephants' self-awareness, Plotnik and his colleagues tested three adult female Asian elephants in front of a mirror.
All three pachyderms sized up their mirror images by inspecting behind the mirror, rubbing their trunks the length of the mirror, or probing their mouths with their trunks to see if their reflections did the same. ............