Wild recognition: conducting the mark test for mirror self-recognition on wild baboons.

The distribution of self-awareness across species is important to understand, not only as a matter of scientific interest but also because of its implications for the ethical standing of non-human animals. The prevailing methodology for determining self-awareness is to test for visual self-recognition using mirror-image stimulation and a 'mark test'. However, most studies have involved very small sample sizes, omitted a control condition and been conducted on captive animals.

Social network inheritance and differentiation in wild baboons.

Immatures' social development may be fundamental to understand important biological processes, such as social information transmission through groups, that can vary with age and sex. Our aim was to determine how social networks change with age and differ between sexes in wild immature baboons, group-living primates that readily learn socially. Our results show that immature baboons inherited their mothers' networks and differentiated from them as they aged, increasing their association with partners of similar age and the same sex.