World's Smartest Horse Passes Self-Awareness Test

http://playingwithlukas.com/blog/ Lukas, the World's Smartest Horse (according to the World Records Academy) and Guinness World Record Holder ("Most numbers correctly identified by a horse in one minute: 19"), has joined an elite group: those with the capacity for self-awareness. He has proven that he is able to recognize his own reflection in a mirror as an image of himself. To date, only humans (after the age of eighteen months), great apes, bottlenose dolphins, orcas, elephants and European magpies have successfully passed this test.

For this experiment, Karen Murdock, Lukas' owner/trainer, utilized the mirror test, developed by Gordon Gallup in 1970 (based on observations by Charles Darwin). It determines whether an animal can recognize its own reflection in a mirror as an image of itself

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• horse
• self-awareness
• world's smartest horse
• Gordon Gallup
• mirror test
• Horses
• animal trainer
• training
• Lukas
• Guinness
• record
• amazing
• scientific
• Karen
• Murdock
• learning
• animal
• welfare
• smart
• world
• revolutionary
• recognition

[PlayingWithLukas]

Thank you very much! The press release with the criteria/protocol is on Lukas' FB Wall (Playing with Lukas) jpets - you can find it under posted articles.

[PlayingWithLukas]

Thank you, sweetie - our love back to you

[jpets561]

Wow, what an accomplishment. How many animals have they tried this test on?

[PlayingWithLukas]

@jpets561 Good question - not really sure, though the scientific community is very stringent in the testing criteria and procedures that we followed.

[jpets561]

@PlayingWithLukas What was the procedure that you had to follow?

[11301920]

Lukas you are SO smart. Now you can stare at yourself in the mirror and make all kinds of funny faces and see just how handsome you really are.

[lovedbysweetie]

You are so smart, this was a given, no test needed sweetie, we knew it :) x0x0x0x0x0 You are loved x0x0x0x0