Know Thyssself

Common garter snake. Holger Krisp, via Wikimedia Commons. Distributed under a CC BY 3.0 license.

What’s the best way of getting into the mind of an animal that lacks limbs? Ironically, it could be by putting ourselves into their shoes. In a recent study with common garter snakes, researchers tried to do just that. They found that snakes could discriminate their own chemical signature from that of littermates fed the same diet. The researchers say it’s a demonstration of self-recognition — a snake version of recognizing your mirror reflection. But not all scientists agree on how to interpret chemical mirror tests like this one.

Read the story at National Geographic news: Can Snakes Recognize Themselves?