Mirror, mirror on the wall, which animals are the cleverest of all?


Sometimes the scientific community, requiring as it does laboratory evidence for most things before declaring them ‘real’, seems way behind when it comes to recognising what goes on in the real world. The latest news is that magpies have joined humans, apes, elephants and dolphins as animals officially declared capable of recognising their own reflections in mirrors, and knowing them for what they are. But I am surely not the only cat owner in the world who has identified through real experience that while the majority of cats show no interest in mirrors, some do—and, by observing them observing themselves, we are capable of discerning, with absolute certainty, that some cats most definitely recognise their own reflections for what they are.

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Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

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Blue Peter and the uncontrollable baby elephant


httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Cj2TtFd_E

A classic clip from a 1960s edition of BBC children’s programme, Blue Peter, in which a baby elephant shows you can never trust babies to behave…

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Thursday, April 24th, 2008

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