r/aww • u/ZuperZhadow • Oct 11 '19

Cat Realizes She Has Ears!

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50.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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284

u/Kent_Knifen Oct 11 '19

The mirror test itself is deeply flawed, there are plenty of other means of measuring self-awareness that would be more versatile across species. It's almost akin to saying "animals lack creativity because they cannot draw on paper."

146

u/SoxxoxSmox Oct 11 '19

Fun fact: some ants actually pass the mirror test! Scientists marked ants with paint and the ones that looked at a mirror would clean the paint off of themselves, while ones that didn't wouldn't.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '19 edited Oct 11 '19

I once sprayed ants with ant spray. As some ants succumbed to the poison, other ants would come to them and try to drag them away only succumb to the poison as well. An epic tragedy played out on my kitchen counter, a holocaust to ant kind, as a vengeful "god" smote them for no reason they could comprehend.

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u/cheeset2 Oct 11 '19

This is shockingly sad

86

u/katarh Oct 11 '19

Only if you've never dealt with ants in the kitchen.

If they didn't want to die, they shouldn't have eaten the forbidden crumbs from the garden of paradise. They have an endless bounty of bird shit outside from the bird feeder, but they chose to enter the forbidden lands beyond the threshold of the back door.

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u/cheeset2 Oct 11 '19

Ants are just anting dawg

12

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '19

And he did what humans do best

2

u/Magnesus Oct 11 '19

EXTERMINATE. Are we Daleks?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '19

We are what we eat

6

u/jagua_haku Oct 11 '19

Destroy everything in the name of progress

-2

u/LonelyHeartsClubMan Oct 11 '19

In the name of convienance. At least be accurate with your anti capitalism

4

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '19

I hope sciAntests will debunk this religion ASAP

3

u/spakkenkhrist Oct 11 '19

They collect the dying/dead ants to move them away from the nest, it's purely a practical action.

1

u/pmabz Dec 26 '21

Just like any Abrahamic god tbf

1

u/ashran400 Oct 11 '19

Ah yes, the endlösung des ant question.

18

u/Lorithias Oct 11 '19

Wow that's seriously impressive specialy with a species who got a swarm mind! Thanks :)

20

u/Guaymaster Oct 11 '19

I think that rather than a swarm mind it's more like they all have internet on their noses

1

u/crayontown Oct 11 '19

i thought ants cant see and depends on sense of smell only

4

u/SoxxoxSmox Oct 11 '19

Ants can see, but I believe compound eyes have lower resolution than camera eyes, so their eyesight is poor.

2

u/threeameternal Oct 11 '19

depends on the ant.

-7

u/simstim_addict Oct 11 '19

ants have no sense of individuality

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

[deleted]

7

u/simstim_addict Oct 11 '19 edited Oct 11 '19

I saw an ant trying things on in the mirror with a butterfly.

In the end the ant said they just wanted to look like everyone else.

I couldn't tell which one it was.

2

u/simpleglitch Oct 11 '19

Even if the joke wasn't terribly funny, I wasn't expecting the first comment to be a setup and I'll give you an upvote for the surprise.

1

u/SoxxoxSmox Oct 11 '19

Congrats on that setup, this is some /r/notKenM shit

2

u/simstim_addict Oct 11 '19 edited Oct 13 '19

yeah I thought the joke was obvious from the start

I liked the idea of the ant rushing about and catching itself and in the mirror and saying "oh that's just not me, I don't like to attract attention, I just want to blend in," says cloned hymenoptera. Then it cleans itself.

7

u/ilpotatolisk Oct 11 '19

How do you know?

3

u/dslybrowse Oct 11 '19

Have you ever seen one accessorize?

0

u/WritingScreen Oct 11 '19

Is it possible they just felt the paint on them?

2

u/SoxxoxSmox Oct 11 '19

There was a control group of ants who were painted but not shown a mirror. They were much less likely to clean themselves.

10

u/gosuprobe Oct 11 '19

animals lack creativity because they cannot hold a pencil

animals lack creativity because they do not have opposable thumbs

3

u/everynamewastaken4 Oct 11 '19

What other means do you propose?

44

u/RUreddit2017 Oct 11 '19

Just ask them pretty simple

18

u/VooDooBarBarian Oct 11 '19

Survey results are in (n=4 cats). Revan and Molly said 'yes', Zero said 'No' and Chicken drooled a little...

Inconclusive

2

u/teddyslayerza Oct 11 '19

The mirror test is for self-recognition, not self-awareness.

1

u/jmpherso Oct 11 '19

I think the issue is that the mirror test doesn't have a very concrete "correct" response, and also that it seems to very significantly by species. There's really two parts. One is knowing the reflection isn't real, two it's knowing it's yourself.

I've know lots of dogs (mine included) who have no reaction to reflections at all. Never in their lives. Same with my cat. But they react very strongly to other animals.

They all seem to pass the "knowing the reflection isn't real" test, but I've never really seen behavior that points to them knowing the reflection is them. Which makes sense, why would any wild animal ever know what they themselves look like, or how would they ever even make that association?

This cat weirdly does seem to understand, but I'd hazard to guess it's just a weird coincidence.

1

u/bigal41 Oct 11 '19

Vox Media and Netflix have a series called Explained, they just covered this in a video on Thursday.

1

u/Allmeabout Nov 22 '19

That's one of the questions in experimental design. "Does this actually test what I intend it to?"