Most Intelligent Animals In The World
Would you feel dumb if you found out an animal was smarter than you? What if was your own pet? Animals can do things even a toddler couldn’t do. Like walking right after birth, feeding themselves… BUT, We are going to travel the world in search of the most intelligent animals mother nature has ever produced. Some you may think are common & some will astound you. But they will all entertain! Here are the smartest animals found in the planet.
11 Pigeons
Pigeons migrate using the electromagnetic fields but if they want to, they could use street signs and save your life along the way. One of the most impressive skills is their geolocation, that means they can remember places from far distances, like google maps helps us find our way home even after a few years. But that’s not the most impressive feature pigeons have. In a particular study, pigeons were trained to distinguish over 300 words from random letters using a touchscreen. The more advanced pigeons where even able to recognize if a word was misspelled. And what about saving lives? Pigeons have great vision and can also see ultraviolet. Because of their eagle eyes, Pigeon were being trained by the US coast guards to find people lost at sea.
10 Rats
When you think of intelligence in rats, you may think of them running through a maze. But it will surprise you to know that rats have one of the highest emotional intelligence in the animal kingdom. Hollywood has done a great job of making us think that rats are disgusting. When, In fact, rats are fastidiously cleaner than cats, are clever, super family oriented, and extremely adaptable. The key here is adaptability. For an animal to be able to go with the flow, means that they have to adapt to change and remember what to do differently next time. Due to their high levels of emotional intelligence, rats are used on behavioral studies to deal with mazes and stress. That’s why rats make great pets. Compared to a dog, most rats take very short time to be trained and like a cat’s purr, rats brux. They tap their teeth together when they are happy and comfortable and will remember their favorite people.
9 Octopus
Octopus are the smartest scape artist in the animal kingdom. An octopus brain is wired similar to our brain. And, could it be possible that an octopus can solve a problem better than you? Naturally octopus are very curious and have been tested by researchers in problem solving and people differentiation. In one study, an octopus was given the task of escaping a maze that included tight spaces. As predicted, octopus did quite well on solving the escaping room conundrum. And how about their people’s skills? In one particular study, an octopus was made to interact with two different people, one was warm and friendly while the other was cold and distant. When the two people entered at the octopus living space, at the same time, the octopus would ignore the impersonal one while turning red of joy at seeing the friendly human. BTW, octopus are so smart they get bored in aquariums so Legos, jars and even Mr. potato heads are given to keep these smart invertebrates busy enough so they would not escape their exhibits and end up in someone else’s tank.
8 Cats
Have you ever wondered why babies are so surprised when you play peek a boo with them or hide behind something? Like a great magician, they actually think you disappeared. There is a concept called object permanence, which is a stage of human development that allows children to understand that things disappear but not forever. Before 4-7 months, human babies do not have this ability. Cats, on the other hand, are born with object permanence and even surpass us in another category, self-awareness. It was believed that self-awareness was only in humans and in the great primates. Babies do not have this ability to recognize themselves in a mirror until around two years of age. Although intelligence can vary between breeds, many cats can recognize themselves in the mirror and begin to stroke their heads and kick their feet to enjoy their reflection.
7 Parrots
Parrots where used by pirates on boats to see if the ship was near land and also used in mines, typically canaries where the norm but parrots too to determine if the air quality was safe for the miners. And you may have sat in from of a parrot and swap words and phrases with them, but are parrots actually smart? Although a parrot’s brain is smaller than a mammal and dolphins. Parrots have the incredible memory of flight navigation and long-distance location. And the mimicking you ask? Parrots have cognitive abilities and intellectual talents comparable to primates. Parrots are able to speak due to their brain structure and neural mechanisms as well as having two independent voice boxes. it’s one of the few animals considered vocal learners. Their powerful avian brain helps them recognize voices, communicate their desires, use tools and even understand the concept of numbers.
6 Elephants
When it comes to brains, Size does matter, elephants have proven that they are large as well as extremely smart, but how intelligent are they? They not only remember the graves of long-lost family members and have complex family and social interactions. But, Elephants also remember the direction that they need to travel towards for water and food. But there is an even more astounding test that revealed the true intelligence and memory of elephants. In Africa there are few elephant hunting tribes. Researchers followed several groups of elephants and recorded their reactions to voices of those hunting tribes. Once the recording started, elephants reacted fearfully to the tribe’s voices and even moved away from the source of the noise. As soon the recording changed to a tribe that did not hunt them, the elephants relaxed. To test the theory of voice recognition, researchers played the hunting tribe’s voices but mixed them with voices of the tribe’s women and children. Elephants only reacted to the male voices since males are the ones who do the hunting.
5 Bees
The best teachers in the insect world! Flowers, fruits and honey, we owe it all to the bees. If not for their pollination and hard work, crops would not yield enough food to sustain our communities. But bees are not only invaluable for what they do, they win the price for brilliance in the insect world. Their brain size is so tiny, the size or a grass seed, but its 10 times denser that any mammal in existence! They can see ultraviolet light and polarized light as well. Researchers tested the brain-smarts theory by teaching them tricks…. One experiment involved teaching a bee how to pull a string and be rewarded with sugar water, later, the trained bee taught the colony to do it too. And how long did it take the entire colony to learn this trick… one time! More complex research was done showing again and again, bees are, really, truly smart.
4 Human Vs. Chimps
If somebody told you that baby chimps are smarter than college students, what would your first thought be? We know that chimps can use tools and some even learned sign language. But how good is their memory? Here is a university conducted memory test pitting chimps against college students. The cognitive test involved flipping a card and matching it with its equal. Knowing that practice improved the results, the college student where allowed to warm up before the contest began. Team chimp won… by a large margin! The younger the chimp the better they did. Researchers speculate that the young chimps were using photographic memory, that means that after glancing at an image for less than a second, the shape and its location was memorized.
3 Crows
Family grudges are as old as time, from Romeo and Juliet to the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s. Humans pass down grudges to the next generation, but did you know crows do it too? Crows have very complex social behavior and language. Several years ago, a group of crows where captured from a park in the US and were used for a social experiment. The researcher wore face masks so the birds would not identify them. After the research was done, the animals where released back into the park where they were captured from. Years later, the same masks used inside the lab, where worn outside where the birds lived. The results were incredible, even after generations have passed, the crows would start croaking and dive bombing the masked individuals who did them, or a family member wrong.
2 Ants
In a meeting on a class room. When an idea starts floating around you start to have more new and creative ones yourself. Well, ants take this concept to the next level to what is called adaptive self-organizing system. In simpler terms, ants together are greater than the sum of its parts. It’s like an individual cell in our body.. not a big deal, but then, gather the millions of cells and voila, a human. Together ants can even float and while passing each other, they will nod. The impressive capacity and organization of the colony is stronger and better than human’s settlements and cities. anthills look similar to our basic building techniques with chambers, corridors, infirmaries and more. They even form cities known as supercolonies where different species of ant gather and live together covering areas of over 60 miles 100 km wide. Moving as a single unit is what makes them unstoppable!
1 Goats
You may have heard that elephants that have fantastic memory. But goats may have them beat… there are many types of intelligence, one of them being problem solving… You will be surprised to know goats are among the best problem solvers in the animal kingdom. What secrets lie in a goat’s brain? Researchers in Australia came up with an experiment that involved levers and treats… if they figured out how to access the treat, then it was theirs… perfect, but here is the best part. When the levers where presented again almost a year later, the majority of the goats remembered how to open the contraption and enjoyed the fruits of their labor.
