Why the New York Times and GEO magazine are interested in Bonn chickens
Press release University Bonn
A study by researchers at the Universities of Bonn and Bochum suggests that roosters could recognise themselves in the mirror
Scrape, cluck, lay eggs - that's it? Anyone who is involved in keeping chickens knows that the animals are capable of much more. Researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Bochum, together with the MSH Medical School Hamburg, have found evidence that roosters could recognise themselves in a mirror. However, whether this is successful depends on the experimental conditions - a result that points beyond the experiment with roosters and could also be of importance for other animal species. The study has now been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
To the GEO article
Researchers at the Universities of Bonn and Bochum have found out in a clever experiment: Roosters also have self-awareness.
If researchers want to find out whether an animal has what is possibly the highest form of mind - self-awareness - they often use the classic mirror test. The aim is to observe how a species behaves when it sees its own face. And this can vary greatly from species to species.
You can find out how these reactions turn out and what conclusions the scientists draw from them in the current GEO article.
To the publication:
Sonja Hillemacher, Sebastian Ocklenburg, Onur Güntürkün, Inga Tiemann:
Roosters do not warn the bird in the mirror: The cognitive ecology of mirror self-recognition. Evidence for mirror self-recognition in the chicken, PLOS ONE, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291416, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0291416
Contact Research Group:
M.Sc. Sonja Hillemacher
Institute for Agricultural Engineering
Process engineering in livestock production
University of Bonn
Tel. +49 2223 9172 43
E-Mail: sonja.hillemacher@uni-bonn.de
Dr. rer. nat. Inga Tiemann
Institute for Agricultural Engineering
Process engineering in livestock production
University of Bonn
Tel. +49 228 73-3081
E-Mail: inga.tiemann@uni-bonn.de
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Onur Güntürkün
Biopsychology
Faculty of Psychology
Ruhr University Bochum
Tel: +49 234 3226213
E-Mail: onur.guentuerkuen@ruhr-uni-bochum.de