Humans like to study themselves in a mirror. But wild baboons, when presented with a mirror, don’t seem to recognize they’re staring at their own selves, a new study has found.
For decades, researchers have tried to understand if other animals are self-aware. They’ve used what’s called the mirror test as a way to measure it.
The idea is simple: place a mark on the face of an animal such that it’s only visible in a mirror. If the animal tries to touch the mark on its body, scientists conclude this suggests some self-awareness: the capacity to identify and award attention to yourself.
Some bonobos, orangutans and chimpanzees have passed the test in captivity, as have individual captive elephants, dolphins and birds.
In the new study, researchers conducted the mirror test on fully wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) in Tsaobis Nature Park, Namibia. “Ours is the first study to do a large sample in the wild,” study co-author Alecia Carter, an evolutionary anthropologist at University College London, told Mongabay by phone.
The researchers placed two mirrors near watering holes the troops frequented, giving them some months to get used to the reflective surfaces.
Then, whenever a baboon sat in front of a mirror, the researchers pointed a laser pointer to parts of its face that it could only see with the mirror. As a control, the team also pointed the laser at the baboons’ arms or legs, when the animals were away from the mirror, to check if they reacted when they could see the mark on their bodies directly.
As it turned out, the baboons closely investigated the laser mark on their limbs, but not when looking at a mirror. This wasn’t surprising; most macaques, a group of monkeys closely related to baboons, don’t pass the mirror test without extensive training in captivity, Carter said.
“Even though we found what we expected, which was nothing, I think it’s still good to have come up with this very thorough methodology for doing the test in the wild,” Carter added.
The researchers, however, observed that the baboons did seem to recognize there were “baboons” in the mirror. Sometimes they gestured at their own reflections for a brief period, or turned around if they saw the reflection of a dominant individual. What this means, however, is hard to say.
Lindsay Murray, a psychologist at the University of Chester, U.K., who wasn’t involved in the research, told Mongabay the study “provides a useful foundation method to use with other primates in the wild” and that “the controls are well-considered.”
Murray added that the descriptions of the baboons’ reactions in front of the mirror are also encouraging for further research, although the observations are anecdotal.
Video and banner image: Researchers conducted the mirror test, a proxy for self-awareness, on fully wild troops of chacma baboons in Namibia. Footage courtesy of E. Ahmad et al. (2025).
