This sort of thing always makes me pause--we aren't the only sentient beings on the planet--we're just the ones most certain that we're the only sentient beings on the planet, because of our privilege as the foremost users of tools and symbolic language. I don't know how an elephant is taught to draw flowers like that. But I think that it could display an awareness of the elephant's selfhood as a being communicating its impression of the concept of flowers. And that ability to convey perspective is the shrinking of a gulf between humans and other species.
Two stories this week tweaked my attention on this subject:
Hens feel empathy for their chicks:
If you’ve been looking for a reason to take up vegetarianism, here you go: A new study finds that chickens can feel empathy. Researchers in the UK ruffled the feathers of chicks by exposing them to puffs of air. The result: signs of distress in the chicks … that were also mirrored in their mothers. The hens showed signs of stress including an increased heart rate, a lowered eye temperature, and increased levels of alertness, preening, and clucking at their chicks, the Telegraph reports.
And whales may have names:
Subtle variations in sperm-whale calls suggest that individuals announce themselves with discrete personal identifier. To put it another way, they might have names.
The findings are preliminary, based on observations of just three whales, so talk of names is still speculation. But “it’s very suggestive,” said biologist Luke Rendell of Scotland’s University of St. Andrews. “They seem to make that coda in a way that’s individually distinctive.”
Wow.
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