{"id":130528,"date":"2023-02-21T05:16:27","date_gmt":"2023-02-21T12:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=130528"},"modified":"2023-02-21T06:09:26","modified_gmt":"2023-02-21T13:09:26","slug":"a-coyote-exhibiting-self-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/21\/a-coyote-exhibiting-self-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Coyote Exhibiting Self Awareness?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I believe so but I’m not completely convinced. (9 photos)<\/p>\n

I’ve posted many of these coyote photos before, as long ago as October of 2013 when the series was taken. But they were split up into at least three different blog posts over several years, which didn’t allow me to fully document the most interesting of several behaviors the coyote exhibited that morning. Today’s post is meant to rectify that. <\/em><\/p>\n

All photos are presented in the order they were taken.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back then I watched as the coyote explored along the Antelope Island causeway and eventually found a duck or shorebird carcass (probably leftovers from a falcon kill) that ‘he’ gnawed on for a while. After giving up on that meager meal he continued to look for something else, almost anything else, to eat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/p>\n

When he reached the end of a rocky spit jutting out into Great Salt Lake he began to display some fascinating behavior. At first he showed interest in what I’ll call a “bump” near the end of the spit’s terminal rock. Perhaps he thought it might be food or maybe he was just curious, but that bump may have been what drew him out to the tip of the spit in the first place.<\/p>\n

He began to place his left paw on the bump and that’s when he noticed…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

his own reflection on the undisturbed and mirror-like surface of the water. In a heartbeat his behavior changed from food-scrounging to intense interest in that reflection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/p>\n

At first when I noticed his slightly raised hackles I thought it might be an aggressive or fearful reaction to his reflection but I’ve rejected that possibility for two reasons: I now believe the raised hackles were caused by his body posture when skin over his shoulder blades was tightened when he lowered his head. In addition, none of his other behaviors or postures even hinted at aggression or fear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And then, for quite a while, he stared and stared straight down at the reflection of his face and head.<\/p>\n

Like I was, you’re probably curious about that “string” coming off of his right foot. When I zoomed in on the high-resolution\u00a0version of the photo it turned out to be nothing more than a stream of muddy water that had been pulled up by his foot.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/p>\n

He swayed his head back and forth slightly and watched intently as his reflection followed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/p>\n

He slowly turned to face more in my direction and watched as his reflection mimicked his every move.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It took a while but eventually he raised his head to check me out. I like his cross-legged pose.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/p>\n

After some time he lost interest in his reflection and strolled into the very shallow lake.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/p>\n

After one last quick glance back at me he resumed his scrounging for food.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the risk of opening a Pandora’s box, I’m fairly confident that the coyote was “self-aware” as he was looking at his reflection, recognizing it as his own. Depending on the definition of self-aware, how a behavior is measured and interpreted and what “expert” you’re talking to, self awareness in many mammals and some birds remains a hot topic.<\/p>\n

Passing the “mirror test<\/a><\/span><\/span>” is one of the hallmarks of being self aware but the “experts” can’t even agree on that.<\/p>\n

But after watching this coyote for as long as I did and studying my many photos of him as carefully as I have, I lean toward him being fully aware that the reflection he was watching was his own. My observations and photos don’t prove he was self-aware but that’s the way I lean.<\/p>\n

As they say, convince me otherwise.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: Image techs for this series are at or close to 1\/1000, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I believe so but I’m not completely convinced. (9 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,374,392,395],"tags":[493,401,98,160,178,6751,6752,591,6750,311],"class_list":["post-130528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-coyotes","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-miscellaneous","tag-antelope-island-causeway","tag-canis-latrans","tag-coyote","tag-great-salt-lake","tag-hunting","tag-mirror-test-for-self-awareness","tag-pandoras-box","tag-reflection","tag-self-awareness","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/coyote-1761-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-xXi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130528"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130614,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130528\/revisions\/130614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}