Put a mirror in a deserted rainforest
What happens?
It should just scare some passing animals!
Who would do such a "boring" thing?
You don't say
Someone really did it
Mark Fernley is a wildlife photographer with a spirit of adventure and a spirit of trouble
He is also an amateur naturalist
In the quiet rainforest of Peru
Together, Mark Fernley and his team created an observational experiment consisting of a mirror and a camera
He's going to use his own lens
Record the most remote corners of the globe
The bizarre behavior of wild animals
Of course
The method he used was very dramatic —
Use mirrors to scare them
Assembled mirror
A camera tied to a tree
But a mirror doesn't satisfy Mark Fernley's desire to do things
thereupon
He installed 10 mirrors in the rainforest
The originally quiet animal kingdom
Instantly filled with a cheerful atmosphere
Let's take a look at some of the animals that the photographer got caught
The first parody of Mirror 10 is a Puma
It was startled at first
Then start dancing your teeth and claws at the mirror
It seems to want to scare away the same kind of people in the mirror
But after it was found that intimidation was ineffective
The attitude of the mountain lion is starting to soften —
It tries to communicate with each other with its nose
And it barked like a "stray dog"
At last
It may be found that the other party also has a willingness to communicate
The cougar actually lay down
Seems to enjoy the company of the same kind in the mirror
Maybe it's forgotten that it was just a passer-by
If the cougar reacts is from fear to intimacy
Panthera onca's reaction, then, is typical of a perfect obsessive look in the mirror.
Draw circles with yourself in the mirror
A jaguar, as usual, hits soy sauce and passes through a clearing
But I accidentally glanced at the mirror on the left
As a result, I almost sat down on the ground in an instant.
But in the mirror of discovery
It's a dark nose
Fur beautiful after the same kind
The jaguar ran decisively to talk
From being startled to running over to poke yourself
It only took about a second in between
The leopard's nerves can be said to be very large
Much the funnier
This leopard was also very enthusiastic after finding the opposite side
Directly activated the "Spoiled Mode"
Only to see this leopard rolling to the ground
Exposed his belly
Then I played a clapping game with myself in the mirror.
The picture can be said to be very leopard smile
Netizens complained after reading it:
No matter how old it is, it is a cat, and its heart suddenly swells to want to raise a leopard.
Not every leopard has that much of a desire to perform
A jaguar chooses to secretly observe its heroic posture
This is a GIF, I'm not lying to you, maybe they're playing "Wooden Man"
Another jaguar suddenly saw its own kind in the mirror
A little suspicious of "leopard life" -
It went around the back of the mirror to check it out
But after standing still for 10 seconds
It eventually gave up thinking
Then left silently
What about a handsome leopard that's just so big?
Although large mammals were Mark Fernley's main subjects
But there are occasional inaccessible guests in front of the camera
Take, for example, this terrier (Tayra)
It looks in the mirror and the performance matches that long neck
It's like playing an exaggerated sitcom
Hey? Hey?? Hey???
The weasel poked its head back and forth at the edge of the mirror
As if to confirm that you are not dazzled
But the fox in the mirror only appeared in that smooth plane
So after sniffing around
The fox ferret also gave up thinking
This class of animals really can't do it
Other birds made a courtship joke in front of this mirror
The bird's name is Pale winged Trumpeter.
"It's like hearing Crazy Pills pickpocketing my black history"
A pair of white-winged trumpeted cranes may be in courtship
But they were close to Mark Fernley's Mirror No. 4
The crane immediately spotted the uninvited guest in the mirror
The next operation made the melon-eating masses understand how fierce the courtship in the animal kingdom is
Only to see it sprint to the mirror
Then he cast a set of "Black Crane Bright Wings" in front of the mirror.
Fighting with the air is called a par
But we all guessed the ending:
The crane went around the back of the mirror, and the air suddenly fell silent...
After a few seconds
The male crane rushed to the mirror at the speed he had just reached
Again he sped away from the mirror
The funniest thing about looking in the mirror is a small rodent, the Agouti.
Listen to its name and know it's a coward
But in reality
This timid animal is still a bit cute
Because they stomp their feet when they're nervous
The caught guinea pig has a super fierce look in his eyes
Same as the spoofed creatures before
At first, the guinea pig was just quietly looking for food to eat
But it should never be
It's about sticking your nose to the edge of the mirror
As a result, it suddenly made eye contact in the mirror
I was directly frightened into mid-air
The hairs on his ass all exploded
It's not tension to the point of stomping your feet anymore
Think about it too
At such a close distance suddenly a creature appeared
It's a person, oh no, the animals have to be frightened
Although the animals reacted very funny
But this experiment was not conducted for spoofing
Fernley started the project back in 2017
The aim is to photograph the behavior of wild mammals and birds
Repeat a well-known "mirror test" MSR at the same time
The test was developed in 1970 by American biological psychologist Gordon Gallup
Used to test whether an animal is self-aware
Gordon Gallup is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Albany
This test is also very interesting to say
First anesthetize the animal
Then make a mark on the area of the body that they can't see (maybe paint or sticker)
Wait until the animals wake up and put a mirror in front of them
If the animal starts fiddling with and studying the mark in front of the mirror
This means that this animal does not regard the reflective image in the mirror as something else
Rhesus monkeys are undergoing mirror tests, source: Liangtang Chang et al
As of 2016
Only a very small number of animals passed the mirror test
These include humans, gorillas, Asian elephants, dolphins, orcas and magpies
It can be seen that the gap between these species is very large
As a higher mammal
It's not surprising that humans and orangutans pass the test
Dolphins are also considered to be very intelligent marine creatures
Watch dolphins frolicking in front of a mirror through a one-way glass
But it's strange that magpies can also pass the test as a bird
In particular, monkeys and dogs, creatures that are obviously smarter than magpies, failed the test
An even more disruptive finding came in a study published in August
An international team of researchers found
The finger-sized Ripper (Cleaner Wrasse) also passed the mirror test
The cleft lip fish is a cleaner in the ocean
Specializes in eating parasites and dead skins from other big fish
And it has a certain social nature
Split-lip fish compared to fingers Source: wiki
Researchers in order to find out
In a water tank with mirrors, 10 wild split-lip fish were placed
At first, the cleft lip fish seems to try to attack the fish in the mirror
But after a while
They started making some funny moves in front of the mirror
For example, suddenly rushing to the mirror and then braking sharply before hitting it
Or swim upside down in front of a mirror
This behavior is rare
One of the researchers Alex Jordan Source: Simon Gingins
The researchers then injected a small amount of brown gelatin into the pharynx of the 8 fish as markers
What surprised them was
Seven of the fish looked in the mirror and studied the marks on their bodies
And try to scrape the mark off with the sand at the bottom of the tank
And after this action is completed
Some fish also go to the mirror to check the previously marked position
But not everyone admits that the cleft lip fish passed the test
Gordon Gallup, the developer of the "Mirror Test," believes that the markings on the cleft lip fish resemble parasites
It's just that the cleft lip fish is reminding the fish in the mirror that there is a foreign body
And he thinks only humans, chimpanzees and orangutans actually pass the mirror test
The evidence from other animal experiments is insufficient.
Asian elephants failed the test at first until a larger source of mirrors was found: Diana Reiss
At present, it seems that the test results of the MSR are not completely accurate
Because one of the obvious problems is that mirror testing relies heavily on vision
If some animals are observed in a way that also uses the sense of smell and hearing
Well even if they are self-aware
It is also unlikely that it will fail the mirror test.
And the habits of some animals may also affect the results of mirror tests
In the gorilla's cognition
Prolonged eye contact is aggressive
So they avoid eye contact with themselves in the mirror
This can cause the test to fail
In addition, most scientists also believe that sociality has a great connection to the identification of animals in the mirror
Philosopher George Herbert Mead argues:
Our sense of self is shaped by our interactions with others
This was also confirmed in earlier MSR tests:
Chimpanzees that grew up in captivity and isolation did not pass the mirror test, while chimpanzees that lived in groups in the wild did.
In conclusion, the mirror test is likely not applicable to all animals
Some scientists believe the next question should be how to improve the way we study the self-awareness of animals.
Of course, this does not mean that the mirror test is useless
After all, we can study animal behavior and psychological cognition based on their behavior in front of the mirror
Especially this thing is still very interesting
Humans can recognize themselves in the mirror when they are 18 months old
The content of this article comes from "Crazy Pill Science"
Copyright belongs to the original author
If you have copyright questions, please contact us
Producer: Zhejiang Science and Technology Association "Science +" micro-platform
New Media Editor/Wu Tong