In the climax of the Pixar film Ratatouille, a mouthful of the eponymous dish whisks food critic Anton Ego back to his happier childhood days. The scene is reminiscent of one described by Marcel Proust in Remembrance of Things Past, when the taste of a petite madeleine dipped in lime tea brings back the memory of his aunt Leonie. Many of us can recount similar moments, when a peculiar combination of sensory cues—a smell or taste or sound—transported us back to a point in our past.

Do animals share similar experiences? Do they store deep autobiographies that can be triggered by the right set of cues? According to a new experiment by Gema Martin-Ordas, Dorthe Berntsen and Josep