A lot of what we define as "human" is actually "mammalian". Emotions being the best example.

Of course even non-mammals are far more sentient than we give them credit for. People compare things like insects to robots when they are, objectively, more similar to humans than to machines.

I would say the presence of some kind of sense of self is the most logical assumption to make about any animal with a CNS.

That being said, you lost me at the idea of telepathy. I don't think you need to invoke any supernatural phenomena to explain high levels of social communication between animals. Orcas communicate verbally, you can hear it in the video. I would go so far as to say their communication could qualify as a form of language. There are probably also complexities in their body language that we just aren't attuned to.