Scientists gave a mirror to the white whale. What happened next is revealing

Four belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) or beluga whales made a convenient captive audience for a team of scientists hoping to explore whether these whales – famous for their communication skills and talkative nature – would be able to pass the mirror test.

According to , a mirror was installed plexiglass bidirectional system that allowed you to observe the belugas as they watched themselvesat the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Aquarium, where they are cared for.

The big question was whether they would be able to associate their reflection with their “sense of identity“.

“Belugas demonstrated what is described as self-directed behaviorin which they appear to use the mirror as a tool to observe parts of their body or activities that they would not otherwise be able to see without a mirror,” he said Alex Mildenerfrom the Reiss Laboratory of Cetacean Cognition at Hunter College and author of the study.

“For example, we saw whales doing pirouettes, which allowed them to observe different parts of your body and monitor their activity,” he added.

This type of self-directed behavior is considered a evidence of self-recognition in the mirror and it is something that scientists have also observed in dolphins. Natasha even passed the so-called “brand test“, moving his body and interacting with a temporary mark on one side of his head.

“We were quite excited to see how Natasha reacted to seeing the temporary visual mark that had been applied to an area between her right eye and ear,” he said. Diana Reiss, cognitive psychologist and scientist specializing in marine mammals who leads the laboratory at Hunter College and authored the study.

“She reacted quite differently in this session than when she was not marked in the same session or in any other session. Specifically, she initially did a series of repetitive laps around the pool with her right side facing the wall and mirror, pressing the marked area of ​​her body against the mirror several times,” he added.

The cognitive psychologist also says that the whale “as soon as it stopped in front of the mirror, it positioned the marked part of its body next to the mirror, often pressing the side of its head against the surface of the mirror”.

“He also displayed a series of other self-directed behaviors, which included repetitive vertical movements of the head (head bobbing), some of them simultaneously with the release of bubbles from the spiracle, vigorous horizontal mouth shaking, opening and closing the mouth and his only occasion of playing with a toy in front of the mirror.”

The study, in the journal PLOS One, is not without caveats, as it is based on a small, captive sample. The authors also report that their control was somewhat more reflective than idealbut belugas’ engagement with their reflexes remains a testament to their remarkable intelligence.

“As we seek to understand the cognitive abilities of other species, tests of [auto-reconhecimento no espelho] provide us with a comparative approach to investigating how different species and individuals perceive and interpret information they see in a mirror.”

“With our growing awareness of the complexity and sensitivity of other species, we hope that there will be, on a global level, a greater appreciation, empathy and concern for well-being and conservation of these magnificent white whales and other species of cetaceans”, say the scientists.

The research team hopes “that these findings will increase our awareness and our commitment to maintaining strong government policies, both globally and locally, to protect these magnificent marine mammals and their environments, especially in light of current threats of weakening policies such as US Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972“.

Reiss’s laboratory hopes to carry out more tests with mirrors on octopuseswhile continuing his ongoing research into the cognitive and communicative abilities of bottlenose dolphins.

Mildener is moving towards developing a catalog of bottlenose dolphins to Gotham Whalea nonprofit organization that tags whales in New York City waters, and hopes to study wild belugas in the future.