Dominique Faget/AFP via Getty Images
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A macaques monkey looking into the mirror of a motorbike in the grounds of a temple in Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Dominique Faget/AFP via Getty Images
Daniel Povinelli was in high school when he first read about a clever experiment, published in 1970, that showed chimpanzees but not monkeys can recognize themselves in mirrors. I bought into the story of mirrors and self-recognition hook, line, and sinker, he recalls. Because it is a compelling story.
All it took was a simple mirror, or so the story went, to reveal that our close chimpanzee relatives are self-aware, with the same kind of basic self-concept that humans have.