Self-aware animals After prolonged exposure to mirrors, several species—chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, dolphins, elephants, and magpies—have similarly demonstrated self-recognition of their mirror image (Gallup, 1970; Prior et al., 2008; Reis & Marino, 2001). In an experiment by Joshua Plotnik and colleagues (2006), Happy, an Asian elephant, when facing a mirror, repeatedly used her trunk to touch an “X” painted above her eye (but not a similar mark above the other eye that was visible only under black light). As one report said, “She’s Happy and she knows it!”