Giving Compass' Take:

• Scientists have long been studying the self-awareness of animals by using a mirror to see if they recognize themselves. The Atlantic reports that a small fish called a cleaner wrasse reacts the same way in which only mammals do. 

• What does this new research mean for animal welfare? How might this affect our views of self-awareness in general?

• Here's an article examining the ways in which fish feel and react. 

A little blue-and-black fish swims up to a mirror. It maneuvers its body vertically to reflect its belly, along with a brown mark that researchers have placed on its throat. The fish then pivots and dives to strike its throat against the sandy bottom of its tank with a glancing blow. Then it returns to the mirror. Depending on which scientists you ask, this moment represents either a revolution or a red herring.

Alex Jordan, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, thinks that this fish—a cleaner wrasse—has just passed a classic test of self-recognition. Scientists have long thought that being able to recognize oneself in a mirror reveals some sort of self-awareness, and perhaps an awareness of others’ perspectives, too. For almost 50 years, they have been using mirrors to test animals for that capacity. After letting an animal get familiar with a mirror, they put a mark someplace on the animal’s body that it can see only in its reflection. If the animal looks in the mirror and then touches or examines the mark on its body, it passes the test.

Read the full article on measuring self-awareness in animals by Elizabeth Preston at The Atlantic.