Monkey self-recognition? Not so fast!

Last week I posted a story about an experiment suggesting monkeys can recognize themselves in the mirror. One of the experts I contacted was Peter G. Roma, who was the lead author of a 2007 paper that failed to find evidence for this kind of self-recognition. Roma responded today with an interesting response, which I'm posting here, and at the end of the original post... Although the video samples are provocative, I cannot agree with the conclusion (and title) of the paper. The lack of social behaviors towards the mirror is irrelevant because the monkeys all had an extensive history with mirrors prior to the study, so there was no reason to expect social responses after years of habituation to reflective surfaces. To anthropomorphize, they may still think the monkey in the mirror is another animal, but over the years they've learned that he's harmless. The examples of putative genital ...