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"The social complexity of the elephant, its well-known altruistic behaviour and, of course, its huge brain, made the elephant a logical candidate species for testing in front of a mirror," said Joshua Plotnik, a psychologist at Emory University in Atlanta, who led a team whose study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. After introducing a 2.5-meter-tall mirror to three adult female Asian elephants, Happy, Maxine and Patty, in the Bronx Zoo, Plotnik and his group showed that Asian elephants belong in the elite group of species capable of mirror self recognition (MSR) with humans, apes and dolphins. "All three showed self-directed behavior in front of the mirror, and thus we were convinced that all three recognized that the mirror image was themselves," says Plotnik. Maxine, for instance, used the tip of her trunk to probe the inside of her mouth while facing the mirror.She also used her trunk to slowly pull one ear toward the mirror, as if she were using the reflection to investigate herself. http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Plotnik_Joshua_81077003.aspx

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