Bob Yirka is a research scientist at Phys.org.
Three researchers, one with the Indian government's Ministry of Earth Sciences, another with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and the third with the National Institute of Advanced Studies in India, found that some penguins may have some degree of self-awareness.
A group of people have written a paper about their research into the behavior of Adélie penguins. The full paper can be found on the preprints server.
Up to now, only a few mammals, some birds and some fish have been found to have self-awareness. It is not easy to test in animals. The mirror test is an experiment where test animals are allowed to see themselves in a mirror while being studied.
A red mark on a person's face that can only be seen in the mirror is one example of self-awareness. The researchers wanted to know if penguins had self-awareness. To find out if Adélie penguins respond to images of themselves in mirrors, they went to a small island in eastern Antarctica.
The first experiment was to place some mirrors on the ground in the vicinity of the penguins and watch as penguins looked down at them. The second part of the project was to build a cardboard corral around some penguins that led them to the end of the enclosure. There were little stickers on the mirrors that looked like they were on the penguin. A bib was placed on penguins in front of a mirror.
In the first experiment, the researchers found no response when they asked the animals to respond to another creature in the mirror. The penguins moved in ways that suggested they were looking at themselves. The penguins became agitated when they looked at the mirrors with stickers on them.
The penguins did exhibit some degree of self-awareness according to their findings.
There is more information about possible self-awareness in Wild Adélie penguins. There is a book titled "10101/2022.11.04.515260".
There is a science network.
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