image by flickr user Shirin K. A. Winiger
Stunningly swinish! That’s me
Published 09 November, 2009, 11:51
It’s not yet clear whether pigs can be as vain as we humans can, but they certainly know how to use a mirror, a new study has revealed.
Most animals, if confronted with a mirror, will take their own reflection for somebody else. A handful of species like elephants, dolphins and some primates – humans included – can go beyond that and see a mirror for what it actually is. Pigs should be on that list too, recent research has shown.
A team of scientists at the University of Cambridge, UK, had eight pigs paired in pens with a mirror hanging on the wall. Over five hours the animals could study their reflections and compare their movements with those of their own and their partners.
"They initially interpret the image as another pig," says lead author and animal welfare scientist Donald Broom. One swine even broke the glass poking at his reflection.
But soon most pigs learned to correctly assess the mirror’s properties, as the subsequent test showed.
The animals were placed in a pen with a bowl of food hidden behind a wall and a fan dissipating the smell all over the room so that the treat could not be tracked. The bowl, however, could be seen in a mirror. Seven pigs out of eight correctly interpreted what they saw and went straight for the prize, spending less than half a minute in doing so. The eighth started searching for the bowl behind the mirror.
The cognitive skills needed to pass this test are an indication of "some degree of self-awareness," says Broom. "It's not conclusive, but it is likely they are self-aware given our results." The team has reported their findings in the current issue of the journal “Animal Behavior”.
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