A Modified Mirror Test as a Visual Guide for the Self-awareness Trait in Wild Antarctica Penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae.

Abstract

In this study, the self-awareness trait was tested in Adelie penguins living on a remote island in Antarctica. Four experimental paradigms were designed for the study to visualize the effect of a coordinated and networked social life on generating the self-awareness trait in Adelie penguins. The study, conducted in extremely cold, snow-covered, and difficult terrains of Antarctica during January-February 2020, reports the presence of traits of self-awareness in wild Adélie penguins in their natural habitat on Dog's Neck Ice Shelf and Svenner Island in East Antarctica. The study is based on a close and careful watch on their daily movements, social activities, and overall lifestyle. Besides, it reports reactions and postures of penguins in response to their images in mirrors during four experimental paradigms-group-behavior test, modified mirror test (MMT), hidden-head test, and colored-bib test. The paper argues that these experimental paradigms are probably the first attempt to find the presence of self-awareness traits in any penguin species. It is a pioneering attempt in conducting a set of cognitive experiments on the free-ranging individuals of a nonhuman species in their natural environment, without any prior familiarization, conditioning, or acclimatization of the experimental species. It is postulated that experimenting in a remote natural habitat, without any external superimposition, brings out the intrinsic qualities of an animal, in perfect equilibrium with its surroundings. Future studies integrating the socio-ecology and cognitive ethology of penguins may provide further insights into whether the reported self-awareness traits have evolved due to the cooperative behavior of individual penguins with conspecific individuals throughout their colonial/social setups. It is based on the understanding that self-awareness is an essential social requirement for a cooperative lifestyle and lies at the aggregated level of social cognition.