Can Animals Imagine? Bonobo Kanzi Passes ‘Pretend Juice’ Test

New research on Kanzi the bonobo suggests primates possess the power of imagination. By tracking imaginary juice, Kanzi showed high-level reasoning once thought unique to humans, challenging views on animal creativity.

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The Remarkable Legacy of Kanzi the Bonobo

Bastos last saw Kanzi just two months prior to he died in March 2025. The bonobo was special, one of the last continuing to be pets increased in a human setting from birth. Her next steps will certainly be to discover whether apes without Kanzi’s history and training can additionally pass the imaginary juice test.

The guesses, Bastos claims, might not have actually been clear-cut proof of Kanzi’s internal creative imagination. “Kanzi is an old bonobo.

The study fixated Kanzi, an amazing bonobo who might connect making use of word-linked symbols called lexigrams. Amalia Bastos, a comparative psychologist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, very first satisfied him in 2023. “We were starstruck by Kanzi,” she says.

Testing Creativity and High-Level Reasoning

Inventive device usage in apes and other pets is usually rejected as a product of unintentional discovery, claims Cathal O’Madagain, a cognitive scientist at the College of Mohammad VI Polytechnic in Morocco that was not associated with the study. Researchers could need to reevaluate: Human innovation is snugly linked to creativity. “You can’t invent a bike if you can not picture one first,” O’Madagain claims. If animals really can envision as human beings do, it would certainly cast their device usage in a new light, he says.

People may not be the only primates with the power to envision. During a pretended tea ceremony, a bonobo called Kanzi tracked unseen juice and fictional grapes, scientists report February 5 in Scientific research.

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The Imaginary Juice Experiment Results

An experimenter made believe to put a glass of “juice”– Kanzi’s tipple of choice– right into both mugs from a see-through vacant container. Kanzi presumed correctly 68 percent of the time, dramatically above chance, the researchers report.

The researchers retested Kanzi to see if he could determine real from phony juice. They presented him with 2 mugs: one including orange juice and an empty one that they filled with pretend juice. When asked which cup he wanted, Kanzi picked the genuine juice almost 80 percent of the time, recommending he had little problem determining his benefit. A third test that simulated the first, however with pretend grapes rather than juice, again recommended Kanzi comprehended where pretend food was located.

An experimenter acted to put a glass of “juice”– Kanzi’s tipple of choice– into both cups from a translucent vacant container. The researchers retested Kanzi to see if he might identify genuine from phony juice. When asked which cup he wanted, Kanzi selected the actual juice almost 80 percent of the time, suggesting he had little concern recognizing his incentive. A 3rd test that simulated the first, however with pretend grapes instead than juice, once more recommended Kanzi understood where pretend food was located.

Challenging the Uniqueness of Human Thought

The searchings for include in an expanding body of work suggesting that ape minds can visualize circumstances beyond the “here-and-now,” a skill when believed to be unique to people. Human children start playing pretend as early as one year old and master the capability to build fictional globes by age 3. Due to the fact that we can visualize points that aren’t actually there, many high-level reasoning tasks are feasible only.

Throughout their very first meeting, the bonobo used his lexigram-studded board to ask Bastos and a coworker to chase after each various other. Bastos noticed that even though they just made believe to play, Kanzi still delighted in seeing them. This kick-started a collection of pretended examinations that Bastos and Christopher Krupenye, a psycho therapist at Johns Hopkins College, developed for Kanzi.

In a video game of pretend, the bonobo Kanzi might inform a scientist which mug still had imaginary juice and which did not due to the fact that the scientist put it back into a pitcher. A.M.P. BASTOS AND C. KRUPENYE/ SCIENCE 2026

Her next actions will be to check out whether apes without Kanzi’s history and training can additionally pass the imaginary juice test.