We live with animals all the time, and we mostly give them a decent amount of credit for intelligence. But the truth is, the credit we do give them probably isn’t enough. While they may not necessarily have a consciousness like ours, they do have complex communication abilities that are surprisingly advanced. And the fact is, when we teach them our communication, or better yet, start to better understand their methods of communicating, it’s quite astounding just how smart they turn out to be.
10. We Have Taught Gorillas How To Communicate Using Sign Language
We have experimented with multiple gorillas when it comes to sign language, but the most well-known was Koko the gorilla, whose trainer managed to teach the great ape over 2,000 words. This training showed that the ape had a memory many people would have never expected, and the gorilla also showed some pretty serious complexity. Koko could regularly make long sentences that had as many as eight signs in a sequence.
Now, apes have been tested a lot over the years to see just how close their intelligence is to ours, and it can be confusing. They have not been able to pass the mirror test, which involves putting a mirror in front of an animal to see if it understands that the mirror is itself. However, its complex language abilities are no joke, and some researchers say that those skills compare to that of our own young. This suggests that a gorilla is somewhere around the intelligence of a really smart human child who hasn’t quite reached the use of reason yet and gained a basic sense of self.
9. Dogs And Cats Have Been Taught 100+ Words
Some may have seen the videos already, as they are quickly becoming a popular genre on YouTube. Cats or dogs are trained to press buttons that say a word, and people love watching the animals “talk.” While not as much training of cats has been done, at least one cat has been taught to use over 50 words in this way, and multiple dogs seem to have passed over the 100-word mark. Interestingly, cats and dogs interact differently with the buttons. Cats will often press just one button or two and tend to be very deliberate about what they want, and how they want it. Dogs, on the other hand, tend to use more button presses to explain themselves.
However, researchers caution that we shouldn’t get too excited about our pets’ level of evolution, and to not anthropomorphize them too much. Experts agree that what is happening is cool, and very interesting, but that doesn’t mean the animal understands language in the same way or level that we do. The animal understands through your specific training that each symbol has an association with a certain thing, but this doesn’t mean that they are using language the way humans do.
8. Crows And Ravens Pass On Their Hatred For You To Everyone They Know
You may have heard before that crows and ravens, which are both members of the same family of birds, can hold grudges for a lifetime. Now, this is not strictly speaking true, but as things often go, myths are usually based on at least some small amount of facts for them to spread in the first place. Crows and ravens, as far as scientists can tell, can actually only hold a grudge for five years total, however, that doesn’t mean you have been forgotten. You see, crows and ravens will pass on their hatred of you by word of bird mouth to all their friends and family. For this reason, it can appear as if crows and ravens literally hate you forever, and of course, this means they can pass on their grudge to another generation.
Apart from being mean and good at hating you, some crows are also extremely good at using tools. The New Caledonian Crow which is found on islands East of Australia, is renowned for this skill, despite its tiny bird brain. It can make hooks and spears out of small sticks or twigs and then use them to help it hunt out and eat food.
7. Elephants Hold Complex Funerals And Can Communicate Silently For Many Miles
One of the reasons so many people have called having elephants at the circus a cruelty over the years is because of how smart they truly are. These huge pachyderms are one of the smartest animals on the planet, and some studies even suggest that they find us cute (when we aren’t trying to poach them). They also have a communication system to relay their complex thoughts to each other over very long distances. Studies have found that their infrasound can reach as far as 10 kilometers away, but there are theories that under the right conditions, it may be heard from even further away.
Elephants also hold extremely complex funerals and behave in a way that we would find normal based on our traditions. They will carefully bury their dead, cry over them, and mourn them as a group. Some elephants have even been observed visiting their relatives’ graves, to mourn them further. This shows a fascinating level of intelligence, as only a being with at least a somewhat complex mind could understand the permanence of death and loss.
6. Cats Know Their Name, And Recognize Your Voice And Smell
Some people have called out to their cats for a long time and started to wonder if they really understand their name because the stubborn little furballs never come. In fact, for years many researchers assumed that cats were just not as smart as dogs because they did not seem to listen very much to commands. However, as anyone who has had a cat can tell you, cats know what you are saying just fine; they just have selective hearing. Studies have shown that cats understand that you are calling them by name, they just come when they feel like it.
Now that cats have been accepted as being a bit smarter than we thought, more studies have been done over recent years, and it has been shown that cats actually don’t pay much attention to faces. However, they do know your smell even if you put on cologne and take a shower, and they know your voice from all the other voices in the world. So, you could change your voice, put on a mask, and shower yourself in perfume, but your cat will still know it’s you.
5. Octopuses Are Amazing Escape Artist And Hate Confinement
Octopuses are aquatic creatures, so of course we don’t tend to spend a lot of time hanging out with them, but if we did, perhaps we would find them more like us than we ever imagined. It is easy to imagine that a being with that many limbs could learn a thing or two over some time spent evolving in the ocean, and octopuses are known for being incredibly smart for animals especially, and marine creatures in particular. One thing smart beings don’t really like is being caged up, and unable to explore the outer world, and when it comes to this; octopuses are no exception.
The fact is that octopus escapes and escape attempts are relatively common, and can range from the smallest octopus to the biggest imaginable. Despite their size, these beings just don’t like being locked up. In Seattle, a giant corpus was caught on video trying to escape from its enclosure, and the staff tried to say it was just hoping to explore a bit. In New Zealand, they had a cute little octopus named Inky who escaped and made his way back to the ocean all on his own. The clever little guy was only as big as a soccer ball, but he found his way home.
4. Sloths Are Known For Being Slow, But This Does Not Extend To Their Intelligence
The hit movie Zootopia certainly made a lot more people pay attention to the sloth, and many people now like to aww about what cute critters they are. However, their reputation is still not one of being very smart. In the movie, their slowness is shown to a comical degree with the sloth taking absolutely forever to say anything. In real life, sloths may be a lot smarter than you think. Sloths may have a very slow metabolism, but this is something they evolved very specifically to survive against the Harpy Eagle, who could see the tiniest of movements from way up in the sky.
However, while sloths are cute, and probably a lot smarter than you imagined, that does not mean they are human beings. A video has been passed around recently of a backpacker who picked up a sloth who was crossing the road and placed the critter in a tree. The sloth then appears to wave to the man in thanks. While this sounds adorable, the truth is quite the opposite of what people think is happening. According to behavioral experts on sloths, they raise their arms to make themselves look bigger when they feel threatened.
3. Dory (The Blue Tang) And All Small Fish, Have Better Memories Than You Think
In Finding Nemo, one of the most important plot points is that the Blue Tang (Dory), has a terrible memory. She has to repeat a single address over and over and over again just to make sure she doesn’t forget it and is almost entirely hopeless. However, there is no reason to believe any of this is at all true. While we have not studied the memory of Blue Tangs specifically, studies that we have done on small fish suggest they have way better memories than most people assumed.
It is more than likely that the entire Dory joke is based on the old belief that goldfish have terrible memories and can barely remember a few seconds ago. However, studies have shown we were totally wrong about goldfish and they can actually remember quite well. Depending on the context and what they are remembering, goldfish have been shown to remember for weeks, months, or even years.
2. Dolphins Are So Smart They Do Drugs, And Get Accused Of Crimes By Humans
Dolphins are already known for being incredibly smart creatures, but their habits can often be more human-like than you might have already imagined. Dolphins have been caught doing recreational drugs to enjoy themselves as they swim around in a pod together playing. You see, dolphins realized that if they suck on a poisonous pufferfish, they can get a really pleasant high from it. They will get their fins on a pufferfish, and then, like a group of stoners, pass it around like a vape bag.
More importantly, dolphins are known for being so smart, and engaging in so many behaviors that we would find questionable in our species, that they get accused of human-like crimes. Now, this can be a controversial subject, as it is hard to be sure just how much dolphins understand about what they are doing. Dolphins have been known to gang rape females, murder young porpoises, and even get sexually aggressive towards humans at times. However, the question is whether you can call it rape or murder when done by a dolphin, even if it appears that way by our standards. Regardless, there are very few animals that are so advanced in intelligence that we sometimes anthropomorphize their actions into crimes.
1. Whale Communication Songs Can Be Heard For Thousands Of Miles
Of course it’s hard to interact with truly giant whales like the blue whale, so it is hard to say just how smart such beings really are. However, with how giant their brains are, it is easy to imagine that they could be far smarter than we know. What we do know, however, is that whales have complex songs for communication that are so well designed they can be heard by whales in completely different parts of the ocean.
The largest whale, the blue whale, only reaches up to about one thousand miles with its song, at least under known and testable conditions, but the Humpback whale, known more for their pods and mating songs, can communicate much farther. The humpback whale’s song has been observed as reaching as far as 10,000 miles away which is just plain staggering. This kind of distance means that theoretically, humpback whales could communicate with other pods with no problem from an entirely different section of the ocean.