Intellectual abilities of animals. General characteristics of the intellectual behavior of animals
The criterion is the encephalization coefficient (shown in parentheses next to each animal name).
This tooth-crushing scientific term is intended to approximately characterize the development of the animal’s intelligence.
The encephalization index is used to identify development trends, as well as the potential capabilities of various species.
Sheep (0.7)
In 10th place is a sheep! The animal was domesticated about 8,000 years ago in the Middle East. The sheep does not show high intelligence and it will not be possible to communicate with it using sign language. A clear outsider.
Horse (0.8)
Horses have an excellent memory. Also, these animals have excellent production and retention conditioned reflexes. This is what it is based on practical use horses.
Cat (0.9)
Some researchers believe that the intelligence of cats is close to the intelligence of two-year-old children. Cats are able to adopt some behavior of their owners and adapt to it.
Squirrel (1.0)
The squirrels nestled comfortably between the cats and dogs. Thanks to their intelligence, they have learned to survive well in wild environment. Researchers have discovered that brave eared animals even dry mushrooms for the winter.
Squirrels are real gurus in the field of preserving supplies for the winter. Don't know how to preserve nuts? Share them with the squirrels. It’s not a fact that they will return it, but they will definitely keep it.
Dog (1,2)
Psychological researchers Elliston Reid and John Pillay from Wofford College in Spartanburg were able to train a border collie named Chaser to verbally perceive over 1,000 objects.
The dog can also classify the functions and shapes of objects, which is comparable to intellectual abilities three year old child.
African elephant (1.4)
The brain of an African elephant weighs about 5 kg. This is a record. A whale has a smaller brain than an elephant! Scientists believe that elephants can experience grief, joy, and compassion; Cooperation, self-awareness, and playfulness are developed.
Research has shown that elephants are superior to humans at tracking multiple objects in space. There has already been ample evidence of elephant altruism towards other species, such as rescuing dogs.
These massive giants observe funeral rituals, honoring their dead kin.
Gorilla (1.6)
The intelligence of gorillas is an order of magnitude lower than that of chimpanzees. But gorillas have developed primitive communication, which is based on 16 sound combinations. Some gorillas have learned sign language.
Marmoset (1.8)
This animal lives in the forests of the Amazon. Marmosets are quite common and are not endangered. The ratio of brain volume to body volume in primates is one of the largest.
Chimpanzee (2.2)
Chimpanzees have learned to communicate using sign language. They are able to use words in a figurative sense, they can create new concepts by combining known words, for example: “lighter” = “bottle” + “match”.
A distinctive feature of chimpanzees is their sense of humor. These monkeys actively use tools and also recognize themselves in the mirror. In addition to using tools, chimpanzees learned to create primitive tools.
For example, they make special sticks for catching ants.
Large dolphin (5.2)
And now a surprise: it turns out that In humans, the encephalization coefficient is 7.6. People are not that far from dolphins. What can a dolphin do? Much.
The dolphin learned to correlate the image of its body with the structure of the human body using analogies. Able to understand new sequences in artificial language.
Able to generalize rules and construct abstract concepts. Parses symbols for different parts of the body. Understands pointing gestures. Recognizes himself in the mirror.
At the stage of animal intelligence, the first forms of thinking appear - “manual thinking of monkeys”, the transfer of the found principle to new conditions; ability to solve one problem in different ways; the ability to understand the surrounding reality, regardless of the presence of biological needs. The process of orientation under task conditions no longer occurs under the conditions of motor tests, but precedes them: the program of actions is prepared intellectually, and movements are only the executive part of orientation. Are formed especially complex shapes behavior with a complex dissected structure. Such complex activity is self-regulating in nature.
The complexity of perception processes (imagery) and the strength of memory increases.
However Even the most complex animal behavior has boundaries that separate it from humans:
1. changeable behavior always maintains connection with biological motives and cannot surpass them.
2. it is always determined directly perceived stimuli or traces of previous experience.
3. the sources of individual behavior are limited: this is either the experience of the species or the experience of a given individual. There is no transfer of experience of past generations in the form of material objects.
A person appears highest form mental reflection- consciousness. Unlike animals, humans:
1. has the ability to make tools with the help of other tools. It means separation of action from biological motive and, thus, the emergence of another type of activity - labor. In consciousness, motive and goal are separated. Making tools for future use presupposes the presence of an image of future action, i.e. the emergence of a plane of consciousness.
2. The development of a person and his psyche is determined not only by biological, but to a greater extent by social motives.
3. A person has a division of labor, i.e. the establishment of social relations on the basis of non-biological activities.
4. a person experiences materialization of the experience of labor operations (in the form of a tool) with the ability to store this experience and transfer it to subsequent generations in the form of material culture.
5. Human language as a system of signals is not tied to specific situations. Human speech has a semantic, emotional and expressive basis.
6. Human society arises on the basis of joint labor activity, unknown and inaccessible to animals.
The origin of human consciousness in anthropogenesis.
We must now consider in more detail the qualitative features of the human psyche, which decisively distinguished him from the animal world. These features arose in the process of anthropogenesis and the cultural history of mankind and were directly related to the transition of man from biological to social path development. The main event here was the emergence consciousness.
The classics of Marxism repeatedly expressed the idea that the leading factors in the emergence of consciousness were work And language. These general provisions received concrete psychological development in the works of Soviet psychologists L. S. Vygotsky, S. Ya. Rubinstein, A. N. Leontiev and others.
A. N. Leontiev has a hypothesis about the origin of consciousness. According to his definition, conscious reflection is a reflection of objective reality in which its “objective stable properties” are highlighted, “regardless of the subject’s relationship to it,” i.e. biological impartiality, conscious reflection.
For an animal, an object is reflected as having a direct relationship to one or another biological motive. In humans, according to A. N. Leontyev, with the advent of consciousness the world begins to be reflected as such, independently of biological purposes, and in this sense “objectively”.
The impetus for the emergence of consciousness was the appearance new form activities - collective work. Any joint work presupposes division of labor. This means that different members of the team begin to perform different operations, and different in one very significant respect: some operations immediately lead to a biologically useful result, while others do not give such a result, but act only as a condition for its achievement. Considered in themselves, such operations appear biologically meaningless.
For example, the pursuit and killing of game by a hunter directly responds to the biological motive - obtaining food. In contrast to this, the actions of the beater, who drives the game away from himself, not only do not have an independent meaning, but also, it would seem, are directly opposite to what should be done. However, they have a real meaning in the context of a collective activity - joint hunting. The same can be said about the actions of making tools, etc.
So, in conditions of collective work, for the first time, operations appear that are not directly aimed at the object of need - the biological motive, but only have in mind intermediate result.
Within the framework of individual activity, this result becomes independent purpose. Thus, for the subject the purpose of an activity is separated from its motive, accordingly, its new unit is distinguished in the activity - action. In terms of mental reflection, this is accompanied by the experience sense actions. After all, in order for a person to be encouraged to perform an action that leads only to an intermediate result, he must understand connection of this result with a motive, that is, to “discover” its meaning for oneself. Meaning, according to the definition of A. N. Leontiev, there is reflection of the relationship between the purpose of an action and the motive.
Actions begin to be directed towards an increasingly wider range of objects, and knowledge of the “objective stable properties” of these objects turns out to be a vital necessity. This is where the role of the second factor in the development of consciousness manifests itself - speech and language.
Most likely, the first elements of human speech appeared during the performance of joint labor actions. It can be assumed that the first words pointed to certain actions, tools, objects; these were also “orders” addressed to the partner in joint action. But very soon the language outgrew such “indicative” and “organizing” functions. After all, every word not only denotes, but also generalizes. Being assigned to a whole class of similar actions, objects or situations, it began to highlight their common stable properties. Thus, the results of cognition began to be recorded in words.
The processes of development of labor and language proceeded in parallel, closely intertwined with each other.
A unique feature of human language is its ability to accumulate knowledge acquired by generations of people. Thanks to her the language has become a native speaker public consciousness . Each person, in the course of individual development through language acquisition, is introduced to “shared knowledge”, and only thanks to this is his individual consciousness. Thus, meanings and language values turned out, according to A. N. Leontiev, the main components of human consciousness.
L. S. Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) showed that a person develops special kind mental functions, which he called "higher mental functions", which are completely absent in animals. These functions constitute highest level human psyche, generally called consciousness. They are formed during and through social interactions. In other words, higher mental functions have social nature.
The ability to master nature did not pass without a trace for man in one very important respect: he also learned to master his own psyche. Appeared arbitrary forms of activity, or higher mental functions. The lowest floor in the structure of activity is occupied by psychophysiological functions: sensory function, motor, mnemonic, etc. L. S. Vygotsky calls them inferior, or natural, mental functions. Animals also have them. In humans, arbitrary forms of such functions appear, which L. S. Vygotsky calls highest: a person can force himself to remember some material, pay attention to some object, and organize his mental activity.
According to L. S. Vygotsky, there is a two-way connection here: these changes in the human psyche act simultaneously as a consequence of his changed relationship with nature, and as a factor that ensures these changes. After all, if a person’s life activity comes down not to adapting to nature, but to changing it, then his actions must be carried out according to some plan, subordinate to some goals. So, by setting and realizing external goals, at some point a person begins to set and achieve internal goals, that is, he learns to manage himself. Thus, the first process stimulates the second. At the same time, progress in self-organization helps to solve external problems more effectively.
So, mastery of nature and mastery own behavior- parallel processes that are deeply interconnected.
Just as man masters nature with using tools, he masters his own behavior also with the help of tools, but only guns special kind - psychological.
For example, external means are used for memorization - this signs some content. Sometimes such means are simple (knot, claw) and can be associated with any content; sometimes they are more differentiated (a system of various notches, knots) and more closely related to the memorized content, representing the rudiments of writing. The main and general thing is that such means-signs, by the fact of their appearance and use, generate a new structure of memorization as a mental process. A person mediates his actions with the help of signs. The person himself introduces an additional stimulus that does not have organic connection with the situation and therefore represents an artificial means-sign; with the help of this sign he masters behavior - remembers, makes choices, etc.
Nothing like this can be imagined in animals.
So, labor created man, communication in the process of labor gave birth to speech. The first words ensured the organization of joint actions. These were words-orders addressed to another and directing his actions: “do this”, “take this”, “go there”, etc. Then a fundamentally important event happened: the man began to turn words-orders towards himself! From the external command function of the word its internal organizing function was born. Vygotsky called the transformation of external functions into internal ones a process interiorization.
IN ontogenesis essentially the same thing is observed. L. S. Vygotsky identifies here the following stages of internalization:
First: an adult uses a word to influence a child, encouraging him to do something.
Second: the child adopts the adult’s method of address and begins to influence the adult with words.
Third: the child begins to influence himself with words. Egocentric speech arises, which is an intermediate stage between speech addressed to another and speech addressed to oneself.
Thus, in the development of a child, two things happen: most important events: birth of a sign-means in the process of communication and transforming it from an external form into an internal one, i.e. its internalization.
This eight-armed creature lies motionless, as if petrified, in a stone nest of the seabed. Only occasionally one of the hands, wriggling as if in impatience, seems to feel the space above the octopus’s shelter. Suddenly his body quickly, throwing up sand and small stones, takes off from its place. Several tentacles tightly captured the victim. But what the octopus holds in its arms is not something that can be eaten with appetite - not crab or fish. He took possession of a white plastic ball.
The octopus learned to grab this object only by observing the actions of its fellow tribesmen sitting in neighboring nests, and they were trained by biologists to grab the ball. And our hero began to exactly copy their behavior. If it were in the ocean, the octopus would not pay any attention to the inedible plastic. Dr. G. Fiorito, the head of the group at the Zoological Station of Naples, where the experiment was carried out, was extremely surprised at his subject’s ability to “know science.”
In animals with developed intelligence, the ability to visually learn has been noticed for a long time. Pigeons of one of the species (Ringeltauben) in their youth only begin to feed on acorns if they see how the older ones do it, swallowing large oak fruits. A group of young Japanese tailless macaques closely watches an old female as she washes sweet potato tubers from the soil in a stream. And then they will do the same. There are other examples of this kind.
However, previously scientists believed that those animals that spend their lives in families and communities benefit from learning from their elders. In others, the ability to visually learn has been lost during evolution. They thought the same about octopuses, who do not know their parents and spend their lives alone. And recent experiences in Naples have overturned these ideas.
Study in in this case means for an animal to try something new and then repeat the situation. Some researchers assess this ability as an indication of the intelligence inherent in animals. But what is intelligence? Scientists begin to argue as soon as it comes to human intelligence, but assessing this concept in relation to animals complicates the matter even more. Dr. L. von Fersen from Nuremberg offers the following formulation: “Intelligence is the result of higher than usual processing of information and the construction of a number of phenomena.” In addition to visual learning, the assessment of intelligence also includes the ability to use tools and express oneself.
Not only people far from science, but also specialists were amazed to learn that a chimpanzee named Kanzi, a pupil of S. Savage-Rumbaug, who devoted herself to the study of primates, mastered the language of symbols without the help of people. There is a manifestation of intelligence! But when the gyrfalcon takes a stone in its beak to throw it high altitude into an ostrich's nest and break the eggs lying there, none of the animal behavior experts talk about the bird's intelligence, although it practiced many times before it learned to hit a nest with a stone from a height.
Meanwhile, in order to appreciate much of what “our smaller brothers” can do, it would often be necessary to use such terms that apply only to people as “thinking” or “draw a conclusion.” However, the fear of receiving ironic views in response prevents scientists from saying these words out loud.
Here is an example that speaks volumes about the legitimacy of such terms. In the fenced space of a large corral, the leader mare of the horse herd taught her charges to resist the enemy, although she had no prior experience in fighting a predator. She was just naturally smart - after all, she became the leader of the herd. Scientists from the Berlin Institute of Zoology kept a herd of Przewalski's horses, the only wild horse species in the world, in the vicinity of Brandenburg. The purpose of the experiments is to find out how, after a hundred years of stay in the zoological garden, these horses will behave in the wild.
The idea was for a large dog, given the appearance of a wolf, to attack the horses in the enclosure. As soon as the collie dog, disguised as a steppe predator, was released inside the enclosure, towards the herd, the horses, sensing danger, became agitated, and when the “wolf” approached about ten meters, the herd scattered. "The horses became frightened and behaved accordingly - chaotic and uncoordinated," says Dr. K. Scheibe, leader of the experiment.
The experiments were repeated, and the researchers saw that the leader of the herd began to gather animals and, in full view of the “wolf,” prepare them for defense. And now, as soon as the “wolf” was launched into the corral, the horses gathered into a herd and stood in a defensive position: they formed a ring, with their heads inward, and their powerful hind legs outward, so that a fatal blow awaited the approaching enemy. The leader awakened in the herd an instinct that had fallen asleep in captivity. This is what horses usually do when there are foals in the herd - they are hidden inside the ring. When there are only adult animals in the herd, they, rallying in twos or threes, go on the offensive against the predator. This time, scientists had to rescue the “predator” from a dangerous situation.
Learning and heredity are two components underlying human development. But the same can be said about learning in the animal world. " Individual training and genetic inclinations act together, and they cannot be separated,” is the conclusion of ethologists. Scientists take advantage of the desire of animals to learn in their experiments. In appropriate experiments, they feel for the mysterious presence of intelligence in “our smaller brothers.” Acting under the slogan: “First teach the animal, then it will show what it can,” they try to find the mechanism of perception and memory.
Tommy the sea lion from the dolphinarium in Münster (Germany), for example, learns under the guidance of Dr. K. Denhard to distinguish drawn figures from the same ones, but shown in a mirror image. The figures resemble the letters T and the Latin L, with rectangles attached to them. For the experiment, at the edge of the pool there are shields with these signs and three monitors with buttons that Tommy can press with his nose. At the beginning of the experiment, scientists show Tommy a figure in a direct image on the central monitor - for five seconds. Then both side monitors turn on. On one, a mirror image of the same figure appears, on the other, the first figure appears, but slightly rotated. If Tommy correctly points to the rotated image, he gets a fish as a reward.
The sea lion coped with this task brilliantly. He proved that primate animals are capable of recognizing not only abstract signs in an inverted position, but also their mirror image.
The time required for a sea lion to remember the first, original, drawing increases depending on the angle at which this drawing is shown to it. Exactly the same slowdown occurs in humans. Dr. K. Denhard concluded that sea lions can recall images of what they see from memory. Until now, only humans were endowed with this ability. Moreover, pigeons can recognize a person they know in a photograph, even if his facial features are altered by cosmetics.
Most scientists studying the mental abilities of animals today agree that humans and animals can be compared if we have strictly defined intellectual abilities in mind. These biologists reject attempts to rank everyone according to "general intelligence" - with humans first. Just recently this would have been unthinkable. Previous generations of naturalists placed animals in stages based solely on the history of the development of the genus, and only looked for parallels with humans. “The biggest mistake of past researchers was the universal fixation of species on this “ladder” of intellects. There were not even attempts to abstract from comparisons with humans and look for general definition intelligence,” says Professor O. Breidbach from Jena.
The concept of evolution previously prompted scientists to believe in this purposeful process, supposedly capable of transforming low-organized animals with simple brains into other animals with more developed brains. It turned out that at the lowest level in the hierarchy of life there are fools, at the top levels there are smart people. Since a person considers himself the pinnacle of creation, he involuntarily compares the behavior of other individuals with his ideas and his capabilities. "To today“Anthropocentric thinking dominates in our heads,” states Professor I. Huston from Dusseldorf. “But this is easily refuted.”
Evolution did not develop in a straight line, as previously thought. She walked many paths, and each such path meant a combination of different combinations of conditions external environment with interests of one kind or another. It doesn’t matter who it is - an ant, a hyena or a cod, each animal meets the conditions that its living space provides it. And not only in physical sense, but also intellectually they must optimally meet the needs of the survival of the species in a given ecological niche.
A few months ago, supporters of the existence of so-called superbrains in some highly developed mammals received a severe blow. Professor O. Gurturkun from the University of Bochum, examining the brain of a dolphin - this recognized intellectual, discovered: its brain contains less nerve cells(in relation to its size) than the brain of an ordinary rat. This discovery may be the basis for understanding the results of another study, which found that it took several months of training for a dolphin to learn the difference between simple graphic symbols - an ellipse, a triangle and a square. These animals are masters of acrobatics and geniuses in identifying the sources of sounds. But in the field of geometric orientation - and until now it has served as a criterion high intelligence for animals, dolphins can be considered underdeveloped.
On the other hand, even very primitive creatures with brains the size of a pinhead are capable of amazing actions. By the way, the brain of insects is easier to study because it is not as complex as the brain of mammals. Therefore, it is easier to discover the methods that insects use to process information.
As researchers Dr. L. Chittka from the University of Würzburg and Dr. K. Gaigor from the Free University of Berlin have established, bees can count. In the first experiment, biologists placed four objects in front of the bees at equal distances from each other, and placed a feeder between the third and fourth. After flying, the bees learned that after the third object a sweet syrup awaited them. Then the scientists changed the experiment: sometimes they moved some objects away from each other, sometimes they placed them between them additional items. But instead of flying chaotically in disorientation, the bees regularly began looking for a feeder behind the third object. That is, they counted three objects to get the long-awaited syrup. “The behavior of bees indicates a certain intelligence,” the researchers concluded.
One of the important mysteries of nature is the different rates of variation of species during the process of evolution. For example, rats, bees, fruit flies and bumblebees can acquire new properties in just a few generations that respond to changing environmental conditions. A classic example is the so-called viruses hong kong flu. Every year it spreads almost throughout the globe, and every year in a modified form. These examples undeniably indicate that during the change, not all the genetic capabilities available to this type, are completely exhausted.
In the evolutionary process, therefore, it is unprofitable to be too smart, that is, to exhaust the entire stock of genetic inclinations without leaving any reserve, Dr. Chittka comes to this opinion. “But we want to know why this is so,” the scientist concludes. To answer the question, he plans to breed subspecies of “super-stupid” and “super-smart” bumblebees and develop a special test for them to determine intelligence. The test should show what shortcomings will be revealed in “super-intelligent” bumblebees, which process a lot of information.
So, attempts to find out the meaning of intelligence in animals have so far brought not much. However, the details of these attempts were surprising. Maybe one day researchers will come to the conclusion that man, as the crown of creation, according to some parameters, should receive retirement.
G. Alexandrovsky
“Science and Life” No. 6, 1999
Animal intelligence is different from human intelligence and cannot be measured by conventional IQ tests. In order not to confuse the instinctive behavior of animals with rational behavior, it should be understood that instinct is an innate ability, and intelligence is an ability acquired through everyday experience.
To demonstrate intellectual abilities, an animal needs obstacles on the way to achieving a certain goal. But, if, for example, a dog receives food from its bowl every day throughout its life, then intellectual abilities will not manifest themselves in this case. In an animal, intellectual actions can arise only in order to invent new way actions to achieve a goal. Moreover, this method will be individual for each individual animal. There are no universal rules in the animal world.
Although animals have intellectual abilities, they do not play in their lives leading role. They trust instincts more, and use intelligence from time to time, and it is not fixed in their life experience and is not passed on by inheritance.
Examples of intelligent animal behavior
The dog is the very first animal that man tamed. She is considered the smartest among all the pets. One day, a famous surgeon who lived in the last century found a dog with injured limb. He healed the animal and thought that the dog would stay with him as a sign of gratitude. But the animal had a different owner, and the first attachment turned out to be, and the dog left. But what was the surgeon’s surprise when, some time later, on the threshold of his house he found the same dog, who brought another dog with a broken leg to him in the hope that the doctor would help her too.
And what, if not a manifestation of intelligence, can explain the behavior of a pack of dogs that are orderly crossing the road along pedestrian crossing, while people, endowed with intelligence from birth, run across her place.
Not only dogs, but also other animals demonstrate their intelligence. Even ants are capable of deciding very complex tasks in the case when you need to remember and convey information about a rich source of food to your relatives. But the manifestation of their mental abilities is limited to this. In other circumstances, intelligence is not involved.
Swallows have been observed to alert their chicks at the moment of hatching when a human is near the nest. The chick stops tapping the shell with its beak until it understands from the voice of its parents that the danger has passed. This example is evidence that intelligence in animals manifests itself as a result of life experience. Swallows did not learn their fear of humans from their parents; they learned to fear them in the course of their lives.
In the same way, rooks avoid a person with a gun, because... smell gunpowder. But they could not adopt this from their ancestors, because gunpowder was invented later than rooks appeared. Those. their fear is also the result of life experience.
Every owner of a cat, dog, parrot or rat has confirmation that his pet is intelligent. It is clear that animals are not smarter than people, but they have other qualities that are valuable to humans.
Man is accustomed to consider himself the most intelligent creature on Earth. Despite his very weak physical capabilities, he controls the lion's share of the land and makes attempts to “enslave” the World Ocean. As for animals, their importance was downplayed allegedly due to a lack of intelligence. But don't underestimate mental abilities our smaller brothers, because some of them are not as stupid as they seem at first glance.
Even though animals do not have sufficient intelligence to be called “intelligent,” some of them are definitely smarter and smarter than others. For example, pigs. They are easy to learn, have excellent memory and demonstrate good results in intelligence tests.
A certain level of intelligence has been observed in parrots, in particular in African Grays. Yes, in most cases they simply repeat the sounds they hear without understanding their meaning, but this is due to lack of proper training. It has been proven that they are able to associate words with the objects that they represent, as well as perceive the concept of shape, color, and serial number.
Squirrels are not only smart, but also cunning. They have long learned that man is a source of food. If you once fed a squirrel, then it is likely that the next day it will be waiting for you in the same place, “recognize” and take the food again. Moreover, she will take as much as you give - she simply hides the leftover food, remembering the “hiding place”.
“Man’s best friend” - a dog - is a very intelligent creature. With proper training, she is able to understand 250 words and gestures, count to five, and perform simple mathematical operations. It is worth mentioning that the most smart breed dogs - poodles.
Of course, this rating could not do without cats. Domestic cats are very smart - their main sign of intelligence is the ability to adapt. Moreover, if your dog does not follow a command that you taught it, this does not mean that it has forgotten it. Rather, she simply does not want to fulfill it: the ability to say “no” is also a sign of intelligence and willpower.
There are legends about the intelligence of ravens - these birds are capable of doing incredible things to get to food, for example, cracking a nut, placing it under the wheels of a car, etc. When scientists decided to test whether the raven was truly endowed with intelligence, they began to give the bird water to drink from a deep jug, which it could not reach with its beak. The raven being tested came up with the idea of throwing it into a container various items so that the water level rises. In general, these birds will definitely find a way out of any situation!
What you hardly expected to see in this ranking is octopuses! These marine invertebrates are endowed with a very impressive brain relative to their body weight. They are trainable and have good memory, distinguish geometric shapes, recognize people, get used to those who feed them. Some mystics believe that octopuses are able to predict the future: just look at the epic with Paul, the “football oracle.”
The top three “smartest” animals are elephants. They recognize themselves in a mirror image, which is considered a sign of self-awareness, have excellent long-term memory and local orientation, know how to use tools (for example, branches as “fly swatters”), distinguish many sounds, and most importantly, are very susceptible to the death of their fellows. These giants know how to draw conclusions and empathize!
Chimpanzees, especially bonobos, are very intelligent creatures and the closest relatives of humans in the animal kingdom. Although chimpanzees cannot speak due to the structure of the vocal apparatus, they are able to communicate with their hands in sign language, use words figuratively, and create new concepts by combining known words. They are able to make tools (clear sticks from leaves, sharpen sticks and stones) and have a sense of humor. If you put a baby chimpanzee and a child next to each other, then until the age of 2, you will not find any difference between them intellectually (sometimes the chimpanzee turns out to be even smarter).
Perhaps the most powerful among animals are dolphins. And no wonder! The brain of a dolphin weighs about 1,700 g, and that of a human - 1,400 g, while the dolphin has twice as many convolutions in the cerebral cortex as a human. According to the latest scientific data from cognitive ethology and zoopsychology, dolphins not only have “ vocabulary"(up to 14,000 sound signals), which allows them to communicate with each other, but also have self-awareness, "social consciousness" and emotional empathy. Moreover, every dolphin has given name, to which he responds when his relatives turn to him! Obviously, humans are not the only “intelligent” creatures, although they are much more aggressive.
