I was at the Vancouver Aquarium the other day and we were down in the underwater viewing area where there are a number of windows looking into the dolphin tank. Normally there can be dozens of people peering through the windows and the dolphins swim by at break-neck speed and one would assume they couldn’t give a rat’s ass if we were there or not.

But I saw something different this time. A woman was standing in front of one of the windows and she was holding a small, stuffed dolphin by the tail with its nose pointing towards the glass. And she was bobbing it up and down. On the other side of the glass was one of the real dolphins and it was suspended in the water, nose-to-nose with the stuffed creature. And it was mimicking the movement, bobbing its nose up and down to the beat of the inanimate creature. It was almost like it felt it was looking into some kind of mirror?

I was so tempted to reach into my bag and grab my camera to record this interaction but decided not to. I just wanted to enjoy this display of animal self-awareness and not miss a second. It was a wise decision because suddenly the woman ran away from the window and headed in the opposite direction from where we were standing. She still held the stuffed toy in front of the windows as she raced down the hallway. The dolphin turned tail and darted away from us, chasing her along the windows.

The whole scene only lasted a few seconds but it was amazing. I’m so glad I was fortunate enough to witness it. It’s one thing to hold a stuffed cat in your living room and laugh while your kitten playfully bats at it. But to see a 500 lb marine mammal in its own enormous tank mimic a miniature version if itself behind a thick, glass window is a spectacular sight to behold indeed.