A capacity to distinguish oneself from one's environment and conspecifics is indispensible even for the most primitive of organisms who require this capacity to survive. In more complex animals it is realized in specialized (digestive, immune and nervous) systems. In man, conscious self-recognition is rooted in functions as diverse as proprioception, somatosensation, intero- and exteroception (hearing and seeing oneself as different from others), willed action, autobiographical and episodic memory, emotion, and knowledge about oneself. Disturbances in these domains, as in not experiencing oneself as the agent of one's actions, loss of proprioception, memory, and emotionality, can dramatically change self-recognition, and undermine the sense of one's individuality and existence. The indubitable presence of several of these functions in non-human animals casts doubt on whether self-recognition in mirrors can serve as lackmus test for self-recognition as such. Against the often asserted special status of the self in consciousness, I shall argue that the self has a special status throughout biology, and that its corporeality provides the hook on which we hinge.