Grey wolf may show signs of self-awareness with the sniff test of self-recognition

Abstract

Although there are recent claims of a lack of evidence of self-consciousness in many tested species, the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror, which seems an exceedingly rare capacity in the animal kingdom, may not be the only way to check for animal self-awareness (i.e. the capacity to become the object of your own attention). A new testing approach, based on a different sensory modality (such as the sniff-test for self-recognition, STSR), recently proved to be effective with dogs. We applied this sniff test to a group of four captive grey wolves, living in male-female couples in two different enclosures at the Wolf Park in Indiana, USA. In this preliminary study, wolves showed some signs of the ability to recognize themselves through the “olfactory mirror” and exhibited some clues of mark-directed responses, particularly scent-rolling, which may shed more light on this still unclear behavior and represent a sort of olfactory equivalent to passing the original mirror test.

KEY WORDS:

• self-awareness
• grey wolf
• sniff test
• mirror test
• animal cognition
• animal consciousness

HIGHLIGHTS

• We applied the sniff-test for self-recognition (STSR) to a group of four captive grey wolves

• Wolves showed signs of the ability to recognize themselves through the “olfactory mirror”

• Wolves may have exhibited a mark-directed behavior: the scent-rolling

• Scent-rolling may represent the olfactory equivalent to touch a mark in the original mirror test

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors are thankful to Jacob Kose for his precious work in improving the narrative and language clarity of the manuscript sections and to three anonymous reviewers who helped us with their suggestions to better address results and discussion presentation. Authors are also grateful to the Wolf Park in Lafayette, Indiana (USA) and its animal keepers, particularly to Monty Sloan and Pat Goodmann, who supported the experimental phases with professionality, ensuring animal safety and wellness.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ETHICAL STANDARD

The authors declare that the animals used in this study have been not harmed by the experiments and have been subject to ethical treatments and that this research followed to the ASAB and ABS Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

R. Cazzolla Gatti conceived the test, designed the study, and wrote the paper. R. Cazzolla Gatti, A. Velichevskaya and K. Davis performed the test and collected the data. K. Davis managed animals and the testing facilities and ensured animal welfare. R. Cazzolla Gatti and A. Velichevskaya analyzed the data. A. Velichevskaya reviewed previous studies to prepare the APPENDIX 1. B. Gottesman revised the manuscript and provided support to the discussion of results.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/03949370.2020.1846628

Additional information

Funding

No funding to declare.