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 supposedly due to a lack of intelligence. But do not underestimate the mental abilities of 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 high 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 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 smartest dog breed is 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 various objects into the container to make the water level rise. 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 very impressive brains relative to their body weight. They are trainable, have a good memory, distinguish geometric shapes, recognize people, and 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 beeps), which allows them to communicate with each other, but also have self-awareness, “social awareness” and emotional empathy. Moreover, each dolphin has its own name, which it responds to when its relatives address it! Obviously, humans are not the only “intelligent” creatures, although they are much more aggressive.

A huge number of beautiful animals live on our planet. Scientists and specialists have been trying for a long time to determine who is the smartest among them?.

Today is the first part of our big review according to Animal Planet.

10th place: Rats

Yes, yes, we were not mistaken. Usually, when you hear the word “rat,” the image of a gray, unpleasant creature with long tail. In criminal jargon, a “rat” is a person who steals from his own people. But read the next few paragraphs and perhaps you will change your mind about these very smart animals.

They are always where we are. They feed on what we left behind. We may not even notice them, but they are here and building their dark kingdoms right under our feet. They are found on every continent except Antarctica. And they are not going anywhere. This is a well-oiled machine for conquering the world.

It has long been known that rats are among the most intelligent animals. As an example, let’s give a story from the head of one of the branches of the famous Moscow Eliseevsky store, Larisa Darkova.

It all started with the fact that rats managed to steal eggs without breaking them. For a long time surveillance was carried out, unnoticed by these gray rodents, in the basements of Eliseevsky. And this is what turned out. “In order not to damage the fragile shell,” says Larisa Darkova, “these clever people came up with the following: one rat lies on its back and rolls its muzzle into the hollow formed on its stomach chicken egg. At this time, another “accomplice” grabs her by the tail, and thus they drag the egg into the hole.”

Humanity has been waging war against rats for centuries, but we cannot win. Some biologists are confident that gray rats have a collective mind that controls the actions of each individual individual. This hypothesis explains a lot: the speed with which gray rodents dealt with other species, and the success in their fight against people.

It is the collective mind that helps rats avoid inevitable death. The well-known phrase “rats fleeing a sinking ship” has behind it numerous, officially recorded cases of rats abandoning doomed ships in advance. Another example is earthquakes, which, according to scientists, cannot be accurately predicted. And the rats simply leave the city a day or two before tremors that could destroy buildings. Perhaps the rat hivemind is able to see the future better than us humans.

Rats have a clear hierarchy. In addition to the leader and subordinates, there are also so-called “scouts” in rat society. Thanks to this, all the efforts of mankind in inventing ingenious mousetraps and rat poisons are coming to naught. The “suicide bombers” “appointed” by the leader go on reconnaissance and try poisoned baits. Having received the SOS signal, the remaining members of the rat pack stop paying attention to poisonous products. And the “kamikazes” sit in their holes and drink water, trying to wash out their stomachs. The same is true with traps. If rats notice their relative in a trap, the flock will immediately leave the dangerous place.

The whole point is that, unlike a person, a rat never steps on the same rake twice, and therefore it is practically indestructible.

We may hate these gray rodents, but when you recognize their abilities, a feeling of respect automatically arises. The rat is a true superorganism, capable of living and thriving in almost any environment, the vitality of which has been developed over 50 million years.

They perfectly climb almost any surface, pipes and trees, can climb steep brick walls, crawl into a hole the size of a five-ruble coin, run at speeds of up to 10 km/h, swim and dive well (there is a known case when a rat swam 29 kilometers) .

When biting, a rat's teeth develop a pressure of 500 kg/sq.cm. This is enough to chew through the bars of the grill. A wild rat in an aggressive state can jump to a height of up to 2 meters. Rats can survive in absolutely extreme conditions that would certainly kill other animals. So, these, in general, heat-loving animals can live in refrigerators at a temperature of minus 17 degrees and even reproduce.

Rats, these practically invisible, nimble and intelligent creatures, are not afraid of a clumsy two-legged man, who, over many millennia of war, has not come up with anything smarter than a simple mousetrap.

9th place: Octopus

No. 9 on our list of the smartest animals is octopus is one of the smartest sea creatures. They know how to play, distinguish various shapes and patterns (such as colored light bulbs), solve puzzles, navigate mazes, and have short-term and long-term memory. As a sign of respect for the intelligence of octopuses, some countries in the world have even passed laws requiring the use of anesthesia before performing operations on them.

Octopuses are invertebrates, and the closest species to them are squid and cuttlefish. In total, there are more than 200 species of different octopuses in the world that inhabit the seas and oceans of the Earth.

Octopuses are skilled hunters, acting from ambush. Open battle is not for them. This attack tactic also serves as a defense for the octopus itself. If necessary, the octopus throws out a cloud of ink, which disorients the predator attacking it. Octopus ink not only allows the owner to hide from sight, but also temporarily deprives the predator of its sense of smell. Maximum speed The octopus's movement is just over 30 km/h, but they can maintain this pace for a very short period of time.

Octopuses are very curious, which is usually associated with intelligence. In nature, they sometimes build their shelter houses from stones - this also indicates a certain intellectual level.

However, octopuses cannot realize that glass is transparent. This is proven by the following simple experiment: we give the octopus a treat in the form of his favorite crab, but in a “package” - a glass cylinder without a top lid. He can continue for a very long time in fruitless attempts to get food, knocking his body against the walls of a transparent vessel, although all he had to do was climb 30 centimeters along the glass, and he would freely penetrate through the open top of the cylinder to the crab. But it is enough for his tentacle to accidentally jump over the top edge of the glass vessel once, and he develops a conditioned reflex. Just one successful attempt is enough, and now the octopus knows exactly how to get the crab from behind the glass.

Octopus tentacles perform irreplaceable functions:

• they crawl on tentacles along the bottom;
• carry heavy loads;
• build nests with tentacles;
• open shellfish shells;
• attach their eggs to stones;
• They also perform guard duty.

The upper pair of hands is intended for feeling and examining surrounding objects. Octopuses use longer tentacles as attack weapons. When attacking prey or defending against an enemy, they try to grab the enemy with them. In “peaceful” times, “combat” arms turn into legs and serve as stilts when moving along the bottom.

The development of organs in animals that they can use as simple tools leads to the formation of a more complex brain.

Various experiments show that octopuses have excellent memory. And the “intelligence” of an animal is primarily determined by the ability of its brain to remember experiences. When everything is in order with memory, the next step is intelligence, which helps to draw conclusions from the experience gained.

Over the past 10 years, the most advanced experiments on the behavior of octopuses have been carried out by sea ​​station in Naples. Scientists have found that Octopuses are trainable. They They can distinguish geometric shapes just as well as elephants and dogs.- a small square from a larger one, a rectangle shown vertically and horizontally, a white circle from a black one, a cross and a square, a rhombus and a triangle. For making the right choice, the octopuses were given goodies; for a mistake, they received a weak electric shock.

Octopuses are easily hypnotized, which indicates a fairly high organization of his brain. One of the methods of hypnosis is to hold an octopus in the palm of your hand for some time with its mouth up, the tentacles should hang down. When an octopus is hypnotized, you can do whatever you want with it - it does not wake up. You can even throw it, and it will fall lifeless, like a piece of rope.

These intelligent marine animals are still poorly understood, but scientists are constantly discovering new and impressive abilities of octopuses.

8th place: Dove

Pigeons can be found in large numbers in all major cities, and most of us consider these birds to be “evil” creatures that get in the way. But numerous scientific experiments show that these are very smart birds. For example, pigeons can remember and recognize hundreds of different images over many years.

The most common and well-known pigeon is the rock pigeon (lat. columba livia) - a bird whose homeland is considered to be Europe. A group of scientists from the Japanese Keio University showed through experiments that rock pigeons are able to recognize themselves in the mirror better than small children. Before these studies, it was believed that only humans, primates, dolphins and elephants had such abilities.

The experiments were carried out as follows. The pigeons were shown 3 videos simultaneously. The first video showed them in real time (i.e. a mirror), the second showed their movements a few seconds ago, and the third was recorded several hours before the present moment. The birds made a choice with their beaks, pointing in a certain direction. According to the results of these tests, it turned out that pigeons remember their actions with a delay of up to 5-7 seconds.

Pigeons can be trained to perform a sequence of movements and distinguish between two objects with small differences - quite impressive for a simple pest.

IN Tsarist Russia pigeons were valued no less than large farm animals. Noble families bred their own breeds of pigeons, and these birds were a source of special pride and were passed on through generations.

The useful skills of pigeons have always been valued. For example, these birds' ability to find their way home and fly quickly made it possible to use them to transmit mail.

7th place: Belka

This nimble animal has a brain the size of a large pea. However, research shows that squirrels have excellent spatial orientation, have extraordinary intelligence and phenomenal memory, and can think and analyze.

Thanks to their intelligence and ability to survive, squirrels can be found everywhere. They have penetrated almost every corner of the globe. Squirrels are everywhere. From alpine marmots on snowy mountain peaks to squirrels living in the hot Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Subterranean squirrels - prairie dogs and chipmunks - have entered the underground space. Squirrels have penetrated all cities. AND The most famous of the squirrels is the gray one.

One of the widely known distinctive features protein is their ability to store nuts for the winter. Squirrels do not hibernate and must find up to 3,000 hidden nuts to survive. They bury some types of nuts in the ground, others hide them in tree hollows. This work requires incredible effort.

Thanks to their phenomenal memory, squirrels can remember the location of a nut 2 months after they buried it. Fantastic! Try hiding 3,000 coins. We guarantee that in a month you will be able to find only the one that is in your wallet.

Squirrels also have their own thieves, who decide not to get nuts, but wait and watch from ambush until other squirrels begin to bury their winter food. But for every action there is a counteraction. If the squirrel notices that they are starting to follow it, it pretends to bury the food. While the thief is wasting time on the empty hole, the squirrel moves his nut to another, more secret place. Isn't this the best proof that squirrels have intelligence?

Planning and remembering the correct route to food is vital. Brain and memory test: At the top of the wall there are 2 round holes, both with doors that open in one direction. One leads to a dead end that will force the squirrel to start over, and the twisted tube - a more difficult path - leads to nuts. Question: Will the squirrel choose the right hole?

Research shows that squirrels have excellent spatial orientation, and even from the ground they can see which hole leads to the nuts. Squirrels without hesitation fit into the desired hole leading to food.

The ability to pave the way, dexterity, phenomenal ingenuity, spatial orientation and lightning speed - this is the secret of the success of squirrels on our planet.

Very often, squirrels are considered pests. After all, they chew everything they can and cannot.

6th place: Pigs

Despite their reputation as gluttonous and always dirty creatures (they will find dirt anywhere), pigs are actually very intelligent animals. Whether domestic or wild, pigs are known for their ability to adapt to different environmental conditions.

American zoologist E. Menzel believes that in terms of the development of their own language, pigs occupy second place among animals after monkeys. Pigs respond well to music, for example, they can grunt to the beat of the melody.

Thanks to high intelligence pigs are highly stressed. Piglets are very attached to their mothers, and if they are separated, especially at an early age, they experience this very painfully: the piglet does not eat well and loses a lot of weight.

The greatest stress for pigs is moving from one place to another. It is not for nothing that Academician Pavlov stated that the pig is the most nervous of the animals surrounding humans.

Some scientists claim that a pig's intelligence is approximately matches the intelligence of a three year old child. In terms of learning ability, pigs are at least at the level of cats and dogs, and often surpass them. Even Charles Darwin believed that pigs were at least as intelligent as dogs.

Conducted various intelligence tests among the pigs. In one test, the feeder was connected to a computer. A cursor was displayed on the monitor screen, which could be moved using a joystick. Also, a special area was shown on the monitor: if you hit it with the cursor, the feeder automatically opens and food pours out. Amazingly, the pigs were excellent at controlling the joystick and moved the cursor to the right place! Dogs cannot repeat this experiment and are inferior to pigs in intelligence.

Pigs have a fantastic sense of smell! They are, for example, used as truffle finders - underground mushrooms - in France. Pigs were used to find mines during the war; trained sniffer pigs easily cope with the search for various drugs.

In terms of blood composition, digestive physiology and some other physiological characteristics, pigs are very close to humans. Only monkeys are closer. That is why donor material taken from pigs is often used in transplantology. Many pig organs are directly or indirectly used in the treatment of dangerous human diseases, and their gastric juice is used in the production of insulin. A pig often suffers from the same diseases as a person, and it can be treated with almost the same drugs in the same doses.

5th place: Crows

Crows are incredibly intelligent animals. Scientists believe that their analytical thinking abilities are on par with those of great apes.

Crows are extremely adaptive and are exceptionally adapted to living around humans. Our actions force them to adapt in new ways every time. Crows don't survive with us, they thrive. They are found everywhere on the planet except Antarctica and parts South America. And throughout the entire territory you are unlikely to meet crows further than 5 km from a human dwelling.

We are finding more and more evidence that crows are very, very smart. Their brain size is the same proportion as that of a chimpanzee. There are plenty of examples various manifestations their intelligence.

understands better than many people, which means red and green lights when crossing the street. Crows living in the city collect nuts from trees and place them on the roadway under the wheels of passing cars to open the shells. Then they wait patiently, waiting for the necessary light, return to the road and take their shelled nuts. An impressive example of innovation in the animal kingdom! The important thing is not that the crows learned to do this, but something else is important. This method was first observed in crows about 12 years ago in Tokyo. After this, all the crows in the area adopted this method. Crows learn from each other - that's a fact!

Another incredible study was carried out with a crow from New Caledonia. On this island, crows use twigs to pick insects from the bark of trees. In the experiment, a crow tried to get a piece of meat from a narrow glass tube. But the crow was given not the usual stick, but a piece of wire. She had never had to deal with this kind of material before. In front of the amazed researchers, the crow independently bent the wire into a hook using its paws and beak, and then took out the bait with this device. At this moment, the experimenters fell into ecstasy! But the use of tools is one of the highest forms of animal behavior, indicating their ability for intelligent activity.

Another example from Sweden. Researchers noticed that crows wait for fishermen to cast their fishing rods into the water, and when they move away, the crows fly in, reel in the fishing rod and eat the fish that was bait.

We can talk endlessly about the intelligence of crows. These observations were made at the University of Washington and indicate crows have amazing memory. Here the researchers had to catch a pair of crows flying around the area. The students went out, caught the birds with a net, measured them, weighed them, and then released them back. And they could not forgive such an attitude towards themselves! Subsequently, the crows flew up to those students as they walked across campus and shit on them, flew around in a flock, in short, ruined their lives in every possible way. This went on for a week. Then this continued for a month. And after the summer holidays...

Author Joshua Klein has been studying crows for more than 10 years. To confirm the presence of intelligence in these birds, he decided to conduct a rather complex experiment. Long story short, he created a special vending machine and placed it in a field with coins scattered around it. The machine was filled with nuts, and to get them, you need to throw a coin into a special slot. Surprisingly, the crows figured out this task quite quickly, picked up the coins, dropped them into the slot and received nuts.

We know a lot about the species that are disappearing from the planet as a result of human habitat expansion, but no one pays attention to the species that are alive and thriving. In Moscow alone there are about 1 million crows. These smartest representatives of birds have perfectly adapted to the human environment.

4th place: Elephant

These are not just lumbering giants with big ears and good memories. The philosopher Aristotle once said that the elephant is “an animal that excels others in wit and intelligence.”

With a mass of more than 5 kg, the elephant's brain is larger than that of any other land animal, but small compared to the total body mass: only ~0.2% (in chimpanzees - 0.8%, in humans about 2%). Based on this, one might think that elephants are quite stupid animals. But the evidence suggests that relative brain size may not be an accurate measure of intelligence.

Elephants are animals that are good know how to show their emotions, both positive and negative. Their “facial expressions” consist of movements of the head, ears and trunk, with which the elephant can express all sorts of, often subtle, shades of good or bad mood.

Elephants are extremely caring and sensitive to other members of their group, as well as other species, which is considered a very advanced form of intelligence. For example, elephants feel very deeply the loss of someone from the herd. They can gather near a dead body for several days. There have been recorded cases of “funerals” when elephants covered their dead comrades with a layer of vegetation.

Elephants incredible good memory . Elephants remember a person who treated them well or badly all their lives. There are many examples when the owner offended the elephant, and only years later the elephant took revenge on him, and sometimes even killed him.

As we already know, use of tools animals directly points to capacity for intelligent activity. To determine this, the following studies were conducted at the Washington Zoo. In the elephant enclosure, fruits and young bamboo shoots were hung high on a tree. The animals, standing on the ground, could not reach them even with their trunks. Not far from this place, the researchers placed a cube-shaped stand and began to observe...

At first, the elephant simply moved the cube around the enclosure, and in fairness it should be noted that he did not immediately figure out what to do: the experiment had to be repeated 7 times. And suddenly inspiration descended on the elephant: he got up, went straight to the cube, pushed it to the place where the treat was hanging and, standing on it with his front legs, took it out with his trunk. After that, even when the cube was out of reach, the elephant used other objects - a car tire and a large ball.

Elephants are believed to have good ear for music and musical memory, and are also able to distinguish melodies from three notes. In general, these huge animals are amazing artists. They are also well known for their ability to draw on the ground while holding a stick with their trunk. In Thailand, they even made an attraction where several Thai elephants painted abstract drawings in front of spectators. True, it is unknown whether the elephants actually understood what they were doing.

3rd place: Orangutans

Apes are considered the most intelligent creatures on Earth after humans. Of course, people are biased in this matter, but the mental capabilities of great apes are difficult to deny. So, In 3rd place on the list of the smartest animals is the orangutan. or “forest man” (orang - “man”, hutan - “forest”).

They have a high culture and strong social ties. Females stay with their children for many years, teaching them everything they need to survive in the forest. For example, orangutans cleverly use leaves as umbrellas from the rain, or remember the places where trees bear fruit at different times of the year. By the age of 10 years, an orangutan can taste and identify more than 200 species of different edible plants.

Great apes, such as chimpanzees and orangutans, are able to recognize themselves in the mirror, while most animals react to their image in the mirror as if they were another individual.

If intelligence is defined as the ability to solve various problems, then orangutans in this sense have no equal in the animal world.

Researchers have often observed orangutans using tools to wildlife. So, one male figured out to use a “pole” left by a man as a spear. He climbed onto the branches hanging over the water and tried to pierce the fish swimming below with a stick.

True, he failed to catch fish in this way, but this impressive example using a spear to catch fish is just one illustration of the high intelligence of orangutans.

2nd place: Dolphins

Dolphins appeared on Earth several tens of millions of years earlier than humans, and they are smarter than almost any creature on the planet.

Like other most intelligent animals, female dolphins stay with their children for many years, passing on their knowledge and experience to them. Much of the behavior of dolphins is passed on “through generations.”

Dolphins can use tools, which, as we already know, is a sign of intelligence. Thus, researchers observed a female dolphin who taught her dolphins to look for food, after putting a sea sponge on her nose so as not to get hurt or burned by a stone fish, which has poisonous spines on its back.

Dolphins are very social animals. They are characterized by self-awareness and division into separate individuals, who, moreover, think about the future. Research shows that dolphin "society" has a complex social structure and consists of individuals who cooperate with each other to solve complex problems, obtain food, etc. In addition, dolphins pass on new behavioral traits and acquired skills to each other.

Dolphins have very well developed imitation behavior. They easily remember and repeat the actions of both their brothers and other individuals from the animal world.

Dolphins are one of the few animals that not only recognize themselves in the mirror, but can also use it to “examine” parts of their body. This ability was previously discovered only in humans, monkeys, elephants and pigs. The ratio between brain and body sizes in a dolphin is second only to that of a human and is much larger than that of a chimpanzee. Dolphins have convolutions similar to convolutions. human brain, which also indicates the presence of intelligence.

Dolphins love an exploratory approach to everything; they quickly assess the situation and adapt their behavior to it, being well aware of what is happening.

When preparing various attractions with dolphins, it was noticed that they are not only capable of following commands, but can also take a creative approach to the process, and in addition to the necessary movements, invent and add their own tricks with objects (balls, hoops, etc.).

Dolphins remember sounds much better than pictures. Thanks to this, they can distinguish each other well by whistling. The range of sounds in which a dolphin can communicate is very wide - from 3,000 Hz to 200,000 Hz. Each dolphin knows the individuals from its pod by voice and has its own personal “name”. With the help of whistles different lengths, tonality and melody, dolphins communicate with each other. So, one dolphin, without seeing the other, can “tell” which pedal needs to be pressed in order to open the feeder and get fish.

Dolphins' ability to imitate is widely known. They can imitate the chirping of birds and the creaking of a rusty door. Dolphins can even repeat some words or laughter after a person.

A fact that not everyone knows: the Japanese still eat intelligent dolphins, killing them by the thousands.

1st place: Chimpanzee

These apes are leaders in tool use. Thus, during observations of chimpanzees in the savannah in southeastern Senegal, more than 20 cases of these animals using 26 different tools, from stone hammers to sticks for picking out termites, were recorded.

But the most amazing thing was to watch the production and use of half-meter copies. The chimpanzees not only broke off branches of the required length and thickness, but also cleared them of leaves and smaller branches, peeled off the bark, and sometimes even sharpened the tip of the tool with their teeth.

Anthropologists from the Universities of Iowa and Cambridge, during research in 2005-2006, first discovered how chimpanzees used spears to hunt other vertebrates, and all this is strikingly reminiscent of the early steps of Homo sapiens on his path to becoming a dexterous hunter.

Just like orangutans, dolphins, elephants, chimpanzees are able to recognize themselves in the mirror, and not see another individual in it.

Another impressive example of the presence of intelligence in chimpanzees. When scientists set the monkeys the task of getting a nut from the bottom of a firmly fixed plastic test tube, some of the monkeys (14 out of 43 individuals) guessed that if they put water in their mouths from a tap and spit it out into a narrow neck, the nut would rise to the surface. 7 chimpanzees completed this task to a victorious end and got to the nut. In addition to chimpanzees, researchers working at an ape sanctuary in Uganda and at the Leipzig Zoo conducted similar experiments on gorillas. However, none of the gorillas managed to lift the nut. to the surface by transferring water in the mouth from the tap to the test tube.

Moreover, in this matter chimpanzees turned out to be smarter than children. Scientists conducted the same experiment with several groups of children: 24 four-year-old children and the same number of six and eight years old. Only instead of a tap, the children were given watering cans so that they would not have to carry water with their mouths. Four-year-old children performed worse than chimpanzees: only two out of 24 completed the task. The highest success rate, as expected, was found in 8-year-old children: 14 out of 24.

However, we will not overestimate the abilities of these monkeys, although the genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees is so great that it was even proposed to combine them into one genus Homo.

That's it for our review 10 Smartest Animals on Earth according to Animal Planet has come to an end.

People are accustomed to consider themselves the crown of evolution on Earth and the masters of nature, and their neighbors on the planet are treated, at best, as uncomplaining servants and unreasonable toys. But research shows that animals are much smarter than they thought. They have amazing memories, they are able to learn from us and even understand our language. But does this make them intelligent?

We sometimes call animals friends - this is a concession to love. You can only be friends with your own kind.
Kir Bulychev “Mind for a cat”

Even ancient Greek philosophers believed that animals have mental abilities - for example, learning. In the 3rd century BC, the concept of instinct appeared in scientific works - the ability to perform actions provoked by some internal conviction. Medieval philosophers, on the contrary, could not even imagine that anyone other than a person would have reason and free will. In their opinion, behind instinct was God's will, which forced the animal to behave in one way or another.

With the emergence of natural science in the 18th century, researchers began to apply both concepts to animals: instinct and reason. At the same time, the German scientist Hermann Reimarus first introduced the scientific definition of instinct - “the ability to perform a series of actions in the same way, regardless of experience, reflection and intention.” Which in general is not very different from modern ideas.

But the term “mind” in relation to animals was not understood exactly as it is now. Manifestations of intelligence included any activity with the help of which animals adapted to certain changes, which, perhaps, is not entirely true.

“A man who has achieved complete perfection is above all animals; but he is lower than everyone else if he lives without laws and without justice” - Aristotle

The scientific community has long been divided on this issue into two camps. Some considered our smaller brothers stupid and primitive creatures, incapable of mental activity. Others, on the contrary, exalted the intelligence of animals, attributing to them human properties, such as consciousness and complex emotions. The latter approach is called anthropomorphic.

The first critic of anthropomorphism was the French naturalist Georges-Louis Buffon. In his book “General and Particular Natural History,” he gave examples of complex insect rituals, emphasizing that they are not intellectual, but instinctive in nature. And he did not consider the elementary actions of animals, which are not instinctive, to be a manifestation of reason. At the same time, Buffon argued that some species are smarter than others.

In the middle of the 19th century, scientists first applied the method of comparative assessment to the psyche of animals. The pioneer in this direction was Frederic Cuvier, brother of the famous naturalist Georges Cuvier. Observing animals in a given situation, he tried to draw the line between rational and instinctive behavior. In his studies, Cuvier came to the conclusion that instinctive actions are performed “blindly, necessarily and invariably,” while rational actions are determined by choice and circumstances. In addition, Cuvier compared the intellectual abilities of different animals and recorded the manifestation of instinctive actions in conditions unusual for the animal.

He made a significant contribution to the study of animal behavior and psyche Charles Darwin. He was one of the first to try to objectively evaluate mental phenomena that were considered subjective, such as emotions. He divided animal behavior into three categories: instinct, learning, and the ability to “reason.”

Darwin also argued that the difference between the psyche of humans and higher animals is one of degree, not quality, since in both humans and animals mental activity is the result of evolution. His colleague George Romens developed the idea, arguing that animals perform intelligent actions, adapting to changing conditions external environment(whoever adapts better survives).

An English psychologist studied the problem of the relationship between instinctive and acquired during training. Conway Lloyd Morgan, who put forward the hypothesis that personal experience animal can cause changes in its instincts. He developed his own criterion for determining reasonableness (now known as the "Lloyd Morgan canon"):

An action cannot be interpreted as the result of the manifestation of any higher mental function if it can be explained by the presence in the animal of an ability occupying a lower level on the psychological scale.

In addition, Morgan was interested in how the learning process occurs in animals. His student Edward Thorndike continued work in this direction. He came to the conclusion that animals, in order to solve certain problems, perform intellectual acts using the “trial and error” method. Thorndike argued that the “laws of learning” are the same for all animals, except that some animals (primarily monkeys) learn everything faster than others; In addition, it turned out that primates are characterized by some behavioral reactions that were previously considered unique to humans.

Having discovered similar elements in the psychology of humans and animals, scientists began to look for “human” signs of behavior or at least something similar in our smaller brothers. And the search yielded many interesting results.

We will remember everything for you

Often instinct is contrasted with thinking - the ability to solve extraordinary behavioral problems. The difficulty of the task does not matter - instinct is also capable of controlling complex behavioral acts. For example, small blind termites build their huge homes, equipped with complex communications, by force of instinct, and they do not need to obtain a higher engineering education in order to accurately design an excellent ventilation system.

Truly intellectual activity is distinguished by the flexibility of thinking with which an animal can adapt to sudden changes conditions. And adaptation to changing conditions is unthinkable without memory and learning. In principle, almost all animals, with the exception of the most primitive ones, are teachable to one degree or another. The longer they retain in their memory useful information, the more often it can be used.

Unlike people who have Google and Wikipedia, animals can only rely on themselves in difficult or unexpected situations. Fortunately, in addition to the “hard-wired” genetic memory, they also have a mechanical one - the ability to acquire experience, and therefore, to learn. In this regard, some animals are record holders even compared to humans.

Don’t even think about offending the nutcracker. She never forgets anything

Try hiding fifty candies or coins in different corners, and after a week remember where they are. If you manage to find most of it, congratulations: either you have a phenomenal memory, or you are a nutcracker! These birds are forced to make extensive supplies and remember where all the caches are located, otherwise they face starvation.

Australian freshwater rainbow fish have excellent memory. The experiments found that they could remember the correct path through the maze 11 months after they first walked through it. And this is almost a third of their life.

Attention, perseverance and trained memory are the key to successful educational process. This will always be relevant not only for pupils and students, but also for the wild children of nature. Furry and feathered animals are quite capable of learning something new from each other. For example, once in England one smart titmouse learned to open milk bottles with foil lids. After some time, her fellow tribesmen also mastered this trick.

Soviet naturalists described the following case: a wild rat adapted to get a treat from a vessel with a narrow neck by dipping its tail inside and licking it. The person who noticed this deliberately did not remove the dishes, and after a while the rat brought its offspring with it. After watching their mother, they soon learned to do the same.

However, sometimes there are situations when neither claws nor teeth help to solve a particular problem, and even the tail becomes powerless. Then you have to make the necessary tools yourself. And this is not an exclusive human skill.

Woodpecker finches from the Galapagos Islands are often forced to find food in hard-to-reach places - under stones, bark and in tree trunks. However, these birds are deprived of such a useful object as a long tongue, therefore, to get food, they use auxiliary objects - for example, a cactus needle or a thin twig. Finches “process” their tools, breaking off the excess, carry them with them and even store them in reserve.

Galapagos finch and its technologically advanced gadget

Many representatives of the corvid family are also partial to all kinds of tools: they use not only twigs, but also pebbles, as well as passing cars - they throw nuts right under the wheels to get rid of the shells!

Sea otters have an even more difficult time: throwing shellfish under passing ships is useless, so they always carry a stone with them - a “bottle opener”. Elephants confidently and easily wield all sorts of devices, octopuses build towers, make armor from shells and arm themselves with jellyfish tentacles, and dolphins use some kind of protective equipment made from sponges.

Well, almost everyone knows what ants are capable of. By the way, small insects also practice crop and animal husbandry with all their might, and also used slave labor long before people thought of it. But the use of improvised means does not guarantee the presence of higher nervous activity. However, even without this, nature has something to surprise us with.

Collective Mind

Some scientists are careful to say that intelligence in the animal world is characteristic not only of individual owners of large skulls, but also of complex self-regulating collective systems. That is, by itself, a bug is a brainless creature, but with a group of comrades united by a common goal, it is already a superbrain!

The term "hive mind" originated in the 1980s in sociology and was initially applied to people. This meant the group's ability to find more effective solution tasks than an individual would do. In both human and animal society crucial for collective intelligence have group size and strength social connections inside her.

In animals, manifestations of collective intelligence are usually expressed in the repetition of the same action by all members of the group - as, for example, fish do when evading a predator. Scientists have always been fascinated by the amazing synchronicity and identity of animal reactions in large group, but what is the “technical content” of this phenomenon and what additional factors influence on it remains to be seen.

Polly wants a cracker!

Another sign of intelligence is language and speech. And man is far from the only owner of them. Strictly speaking, all animals have means of intraspecific communication, but the language that develops and is applicable for interspecific communication is considered “intelligent.” Animals that “speak” human language are actually not such a rare phenomenon. There have been many recorded cases of four-legged pets imitating individual words, delighting those around them. On the Internet you can find many videos with talking dogs and cats, whose owners are often confident that their pet is the most intelligent animal in the world. But this is not speech, but only imitation.

Usually the phrase “understands everything, but doesn’t speak” is more applicable to animals. For example, a dog named Chaser is able to understand the meaning of more than a thousand words (while about eight hundred are enough for the average teenager to live). These are mainly the names of objects, since the researchers primarily wanted to find out whether the animal can recognize not only commands, but also the names of things, and what is the limit on the number of words remembered.

The scene of interspecies communication ceases to be so idyllic if you know that the photo shows a US Navy petty officer training combat dolphins

When communicating with each other, most animals use various sound signals and silent “body language,” as well as smells and colors. Strangely enough, ground squirrels use a rather rich language from a phonetic point of view, but the language of dolphins is much more impressive. In addition to developed gestural communication, they have many different means of audio communication: clicks, claps, smacking, whistling, squeaking, roaring.

Interestingly, dolphins, like people, apparently divide what they say into sounds, syllables, words and phrases, and also give names to their relatives. Now scientists are trying to decipher the language of dolphins, because they believe that the whistle, which has more than thirty varieties, is much more informative than it seems at first glance - researchers have already counted about 180 communication signs in it.

While some scientists are trying to understand the language of dolphins, others are teaching animals human language. For example, American psychology professor Irene Pepperberg is known for her experiments on training parrots. Her first charge, the gray parrot Alex, not only knew and clearly pronounced 150 words, but also understood what he was talking about. Alex could identify up to fifty different objects and identify up to six objects at the same time, distinguished colors and geometric shapes, had an understanding of such concepts as “more”, “less”, “same”, “different”, “above”, “under” , "zero".

Unfortunately, this smartest bird died in the prime of life in 2007, having lived only thirty years out of a possible fifty. According to the scientist, at the time of his death, Alex was the same level of development as a two-year-old child. Who knows what successes he would have achieved if he had lived at least ten more years?

Irene Pepperberg always has someone to talk to

However, scientists have always strived most diligently to make contact with a person’s closest relatives. Actually, it’s hard for primates to “speak”, since they usually pronounce sounds while inhaling, and not exhaling, like us, and practically do not use speech apparatus- lips, tongue, etc. But nevertheless, their linguistic abilities are quite decent, especially among chimpanzees.

In the sixties, the Gardners taught a female chimpanzee named Washoe to speak deaf-mute language. The monkey mastered 160 words in five years, and its speech could well be called meaningful. She composed phrases freely and even deliberately used some words in a figurative sense - to swear.

Scientists, inspired by their success, began to actively work with other chimpanzees. Moreover, in one of the experiments, Washoe successfully taught the language to her adopted son, Lullis, without any scientific intervention.

Washoe chats with his best friend, explorer Roger Fouts

Gorillas also turned out to be excellent students; learning sign language at the same time as the children, the monkeys Coco and Michael turned out to be more diligent. What’s most interesting is that when communicating with monkeys who had learned an intermediary language, scientists encountered such an unexpected phenomenon as a sense of humor. Koko once made fun of the teacher, claiming that she was a “bird” and not a gorilla, but then she herself admitted to the joke.

Attempts have also been made to teach artificial languages ​​to primates. The Premacks developed a special symbol language for several experimental chimpanzees. The greatest success in mastering it was achieved by a female named Sarah: she knew 120 words and mastered some basic grammar.

Koko, the intelligent and musical gorilla, sadly died in June 2018

Another way of interspecies communication is the use of lexigrams (geometric figures that convey the meaning of a word). The first monkey to learn this language was the chimpanzee Lana, but the recognized record holder in this regard is the bonobo Kanzi. He mastered almost 350 lexigrams and reached the mental development level of a three-year-old child.

The chimpanzee Panbanisha has achieved impressive success. She understands about three thousand words, uses lexigrams fluently, and even became a teacher for her own son, nicknamed Newt, and a translator “from monkey to human” for her mother Matata. Thus, a series of experiments proved that primates have a pronounced ability for symbolic thinking.

Kanzi and Panbanisha in class

But in the animal world there are not only “linguists”. The same monkeys have some mathematical abilities, which was proven in their studies by scientists from Harvard and Yale universities who worked with rhesus monkeys. True, the peak of the macaques’ mathematical abilities was solving the simplest examples, but, watching how their students mastered the basics of arithmetic, the scientists saw similarities with the way children study mathematics and understood why they sometimes make mistakes.

It is believed that in this case the animal recognizes itself in the mirror. Science knows of several species endowed with this ability. These include chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, elephants, dolphins and magpies. Other animals, as a rule, perceive their own reflection as another individual; However, on this basis alone it is too early to conclude that they lack self-awareness.

Clever Hans

An Oryol trotter named Clever Hans, who lived in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, became famous for being able to add, subtract, multiply and divide, perform calculations with fractions, indicate exact time, specific dates on the calendar and even read. But he couldn’t speak - Hans answered questions by hitting the ground with his hoof.

For quite a long time, the horse’s phenomenal abilities were considered almost a miracle, until one day it became clear that Hans’s only merit was his fantastic training. The horse caught the slightest reaction of the one who asked it another tricky question, and thus “calculated” the correct answer. Realizing how surprised the spectator was that the animal had correctly added 12 and 12, Hans realized that there was no need to knock further. Although you also need to be able to do this!

In honor of the trotter, the psychological phenomenon “Clever Hans effect”, associated with the involuntary influence of the owner on the behavior of the animal, got its name.

Monkeys rob a bank

Since the 1960s, experts have focused their attention on studying communication in animals and the social structure of populations, as well as the influence of social aspects on the development of intelligence. Here, too, there were disagreements and fierce disputes. Some scientists stated that sociological terms are not applicable to animals, since sociality is a phenomenon characteristic only of the human community. Their opponents, on the contrary, saw in the beginnings of animal sociality the prerequisites for social processes in humans, and some were so carried away by this idea that they again carelessly stepped onto the path of anthropomorphism.

Modern research has confirmed the connection between social conditions and intelligence. The most developed, as a rule, are those animals that tend to exist in communities, and the more complex and active their social life, the more powerful intellectual potential they have.

In addition, as it turns out, some purely human social skills can be taught to animals. An interesting experiment was recently conducted by scientists from Yale University. They decided to teach monkeys how to use money, and as objects for the experiment they chose not progressive chimpanzees, but more primitive capuchins, whose needs are limited to food, sleep and reproduction.

Among Capuchins, the real man is the one who has a lot of bananas.

First, the scientists forced the monkeys to work hard by giving them treats as a reward, and then, when the capuchins learned the connection, they replaced the food with multi-colored plastic tokens with a certain “denomination.” And soon they were surprised to see a miniature model formed in the enclosure human society with all its shortcomings and vices, workaholics, quitters, those who preferred to accumulate tokens, and those for whom it was easier to take them away. The monkeys stopped trusting each other and became suspicious and aggressive. In addition, they quickly learned the concepts of “expensive” and “cheap”, attempted to rob an impromptu “bank” and did not even shy away from “love for money”.

In principle, this is a completely understandable picture, but now a big question arises: should we consider those people who lead similar image life? Who knows if our descendants will become pets or experimental samples for someone who will learn from our mistakes? Several decades ago, humanity enthusiastically imagined how it would come into contact with smaller brothers in mind, learn something new and correct from them, and conquer the vastness of the Universe side by side with them.

Monkey Mowgli

Rick Jaffa, screenwriter of the films “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “,” said that he was inspired to create the image of the main character, the chimpanzee Caesar, by an article about a baby ape raised by humans. In the story, Caesar, who has rapidly become wiser under the influence of an experimental drug, lives with people and masters sign language. For the time being, he even considers himself a human. When Caesar is separated from his family and sent to an animal shelter, he suffers a terrible blow, which ultimately pushes him to start a revolution against the people.

Caesar from Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Most likely, Jaffa read about a chimpanzee named Nim Shimpski, whose fate is remarkably similar to that of Caesar. In the 1970s, this monkey became a participant in an ambitious experiment to raise a primate in a human family. Unfortunately, despite the successes, the experiment was curtailed, and Nim himself was taken to a nursery. “Return to his roots” was a real shock for the poor fellow: the one-and-a-half-year-old chimpanzee, who had grown up among people since infancy, was incredibly homesick for them. Unlike Caesar, Nim failed to find common language with other monkeys. The documentary film “Project Nim”, filmed in 2011, is dedicated to this incident.

...and Nim, his prototype

Intelligent animals in science fiction

In the book by Ariadna Gromova “We are of the same blood - you and me!” (1967) people who have learned to understand animals face serious moral and ethical problems related to the relationship between the two worlds. He asks these same questions in his story “Anniversary-200” (1985). Isn't it immoral to conduct experiments on a living being? What about the reasonable? When does the “little brother” become equal?

In Dean Koontz's novel Guardian Angels (1987), the labrador Einstein, who received his incredible abilities as a result of genetic experiments, is an incredibly charming character. The story of talking dolphins from the novel “The Reasonable Animal” (1967) by Robert Merle, where they turn out to be the only surviving witnesses to war crimes committed by people, also looks truly touching.

If we don't talk about science fiction, and about fantasy, intelligent animals are common and familiar there. There are so many of them that this type of literature can be classified as a separate subgenre: here you have warrior cats, intelligent rodents, and even heroic bats. True, authors usually do not think about developing a fundamentally different, “animal” psychology. The end result is animals that think like humans and behave like humans.

Sharks are scary enough, but intelligent sharks...

In cinema, intelligent animals are very widely represented, oddly enough, in horror films. As a rule, pumped up brains make a predator even more dangerous, and turn a relatively harmless creature into a ferocious killer. But if you don’t expect anything good by default from the wiser sharks from the 1999 film “Deep Blue Sea,” then the cold blood and cruelty with which the mutated “friends of man” from “The Pack” (2006) deal with people are very frightening.

Against this background, few stories stand out where people and animals do not seek to destroy each other. For example, the comedy “Joe’s Apartment” (1996), the heroes of which are cockroaches, and not only talking, but also endowed with considerable musical talent.

* * *

We can only hope that those who replace us will treat those who live next to them better. After all, the ability to live, trying not to harm anyone, is perhaps the highest manifestation of intelligence.

The beginning of the scientific study of the intellectual abilities of animals, as well as their psyches in general, was laid by Charles Darwin in his book “The Origin of Species and Natural Selection.” His student George-John Romans continued his studies, which resulted in the book Animal Minds. Romens's approach is characterized by anthropomorphism and lack of attention to methodological rigor. Animal Minds is based on in some cases, which seemed worthy of attention to the author, his readers or friends, and not through systematic, targeted observation. Despite the dubious scientific nature, this approach has become widespread. Among his adherents are Maximilian Perty (German: Maximilian Perty) and William Lauder Lindsay (English: William Lauder Lindsay).

The author has repeatedly observed the manifestation of considerable intelligence in the bison in the zoological park in Kingston Hills. Since the said animal was distinguished by a bad temper, a ring was threaded into its nose, to which a chain about two feet long was attached. At the free end of the chain was a ring about four inches in diameter. When the animal grazed, the chain dragged freely along the ground, dangerously close to the hooves. If an animal stepped on this ring, it would experience very severe pain. It found a very ingenious way to get rid of this inconvenience by putting a chain on the horn. I have seen the clever animal perform this trick many times, first carefully inserting the horn into the hole, then shaking its head until the ring is securely in place! Original text(English) This author also says that he has "frequently observed the buffalo at the Zoological Farm on Kingston Hill" display the following proof of intelligence. Being of a ferocious disposition, a strong iron ring was fixed through the septum of his nose, to which a chain about two feet long was attached. At the free end of the chain there was another ring about four inches in diameter. "In grazing the buffalo must have put his feet on this ring, and in raising his head the jerk would have produced significant pain. In order to avoid this the animal has the sense to put his horn through the lower ring, and thus avoid the inconvenience he is put to. I have seen him do this in a very deliberate manner, putting his head on one side while he got his horn through the ring, and then shaking his head till the ring rested at the bottom of the horn." ! - J.-J. Romens. Animal mind.

The results obtained on the basis of such an “anecdotal approach” did not stand up to scrutiny and were refuted by experiments. At the beginning of the 20th century, the exact opposite approach gained widespread acceptance in the animal behavior sciences. This was associated with the emergence of the scientific school of behaviorism. Behaviorists gave great value scientific rigor and precision of the methods used. But at the same time, they basically excluded the possibility of studying the psyche of animals. One of the founders of behaviorism is Conwy Lloyd Morgan, a British psychologist.

In particular, he owns famous rule, known as "The Lloyd-Morgan Canon".

...this or that action can in no case be interpreted as the result of the manifestation of any higher mental function if it can be explained on the basis of the presence in the animal of an ability occupying a lower level on the psychological scale

Close in spirit to behaviorism was the concept of nervous activity of the Soviet physiologist I. P. Pavlov. There was even a ban on anthropomorphism in Pavlov's laboratory. Not all behaviorists shared the ideas of radical, “reductionist” behaviorism, which reduced all the diversity of behavior to the “stimulus-response” pattern. Such scientists include Edward Tolman, an American psychologist.

With the accumulation of empirical material regarding animal behavior, naturalists and animal psychologists discovered that not all behavioral acts can be explained by instincts or learning.

Intellectual abilities of animals

“...it is extremely difficult to indicate exactly which animals can be considered to have intelligent behavior and which animals cannot. Obviously, we can only talk about higher vertebrates, but clearly not only about primates, as was accepted until recently.”

K.E. Fabry

The intellectual abilities of animals other than humans include the ability to solve non-trivial behavioral problems (thinking). Intelligent behavior is closely related to other components of behavior such as perception, manipulation, learning and instincts. The complexity of a behavioral act is not a sufficient basis for recognizing the presence of intelligence in an animal. The complex nest-building behavior of some birds is determined by innate programs (instincts). The main difference intellectual activity is plasticity, which can significantly increase the chances of survival in a rapidly changing environment.

The development of intelligence can be evidenced by both behavior and the structure of the brain. Intelligence tests for primates, similar to those used in widely used intelligence tests for humans, have become increasingly popular. As an example of the application of the second approach, one can cite the encephalization coefficient and the Dunbar number, which relates the development of the neocortex and the size of the herd in primates.

Intelligence is the pinnacle of animal mental development. Currently, there is evidence of the presence of the rudiments of intellectual activity in a wide number of vertebrates. Nevertheless, intelligence in the animal kingdom is a rather rare phenomenon. Some researchers define intelligence as a property of complex self-regulating systems.

The ability of ants to solve complex problems is associated with the emergent properties of the anthill as a “superorganism”; individual ants can transmit 6 bits in 200 seconds to describe the path to food.

Prerequisites

Memory and learning

Learning combines all the variety of forms of behavior modification under the influence of environmental factors - the formation of conditioned reflexes, imprinting, habituation, training (even innate forms of behavior require some modification) and latent learning. The ability to learn is characteristic of almost all animals, with the exception of the most primitive ones.

Learning provides flexibility of behavior and is one of the prerequisites for the formation of intelligence.

Manipulation

Manifestations motor activity, covering all forms of active movement by animals of environmental components in space (as opposed to locomotion - the movement of animals themselves in space). In higher animals, manipulation is carried out mainly with the help of oral apparatus and forelimbs (examination of objects, nutrition, protection, constructive actions, etc.). Manipulation and manipulative problem solving provide the animal with the most profound, varied and essential information for mental development about the objective components of the environment and the processes occurring in it. During evolution, the progressive development of manipulation played a decisive role in the development of the cognitive abilities of animals and formed the basis for the formation of their intelligence. In fossil primates, human ancestors, manipulation, especially of “biologically neutral” objects, was the basis for the emergence of labor activity.

Higher mental functions

Language

The key features of language as a communicative system are development in the process of socialization, the arbitrary nature of signs, the presence of grammar and openness. Animal communication systems correspond to individual features of language. An example is the well-known bee dance. The form of its elements (waggling, moving in a circle) are separated from the content (direction, distance, characteristics of the food source).

Although there is evidence that some talking birds are able to use their imitative abilities for the needs of interspecific communication, the actions talking birds(mynas, macaws) do not meet this definition.

One approach to studying animal language is experimental teaching of an intermediary language. Similar experiments involving apes have become very popular. Since, due to anatomical and physiological characteristics, monkeys are not able to reproduce the sounds of human speech, the first attempts to teach them human language failed.

Some experiments on teaching monkeys language
Researcher's name	Animal name	Language
Allen and Beatrice Gardners	Washoe (chimpanzee)	Deaf language (Amslen)
David Primack and Anne James Primack	Sarah (chimpanzee), Elizabeth, Peony	Specially designed (curly tokens were used to represent English words)
Dewayne Rumbaugh (eng. Duane Rumbaugh)	Lana	Specially designed artificial language based on lexigrams.
Francine Patterson	Koko (gorilla)	sign language (about a thousand signs)

The first experiment using mediated sign language was undertaken by the Gardners. They proceeded from Robert Yerkes's assumption that chimpanzees are incapable of articulating the sounds of human language. The chimpanzee Washoe showed the ability to combine signs like “you” + “tickle” + “I”, “give” + “sweet”. Monkeys at the University of Nevada, Reno Zoo used Amlen to communicate with each other. The language of gophers is quite complex and consists of a variety of whistles, chirps and clicks of varying frequencies and volumes. Interspecific communication is also possible in animals.

Joint flock hunting in mammals and some birds is widespread; there are also cases of interspecific coordinated hunting.

Tool activity

For a long time it was believed that the ability to create and use tools is unique to humans. Currently available large number evidence of active and purposeful use of tools by animals.

Thinking

Particular interest in the problems of animal thinking was observed at the dawn of the formation of comparative psychology. The main literature on this topic comes from the classics, the most famous of whom is Wolfgang Köhler. At that time, experiments were carried out mainly on primates. Köhler, for example, used chimpanzees. It has now been reliably established that thinking is not limited to primates. Recently, evidence has been obtained of the ability of New Caledonian crows to establish cause-and-effect relationships. A female African gray parrot showed the ability to hatch by exclusion.

Abstraction

Classification and generalization

A product of mental activity in which reflections are presented common features and qualities of the phenomena of reality. Types of generalization correspond to types of thinking. Generalization also acts as a means of mental activity. The simplest generalizations involve combining, grouping objects based on a separate, random feature (syncretic associations). More complex is complex generalization, in which a group of objects is combined into a single whole for various reasons.

Mathematical ability

According to modern ideas, the foundations of mathematical abilities in humans and animals have a common basis. Although animals are unable to deal with abstract mathematical concepts, they can confidently estimate and compare the number of different objects. Similar abilities have been noted in primates and some birds, in particular ravens. Moreover, primates are capable of performing arithmetic operations

The validity of Morgan's canon, as well as the importance of scrupulous evaluation of methods, is well illustrated by the story of Clever Hans, a horse who demonstrated exceptional mathematical abilities. Clever Hans was able to perform mathematical calculations and tap out the answer with his hoof. For thirteen years, Hans publicly demonstrated his abilities (including in the absence of his owner, which excluded the possibility of training), until in 1904 Oskar Pfungst became mute. Oskar Pfungst did not establish that the horse responded to the examiners' subtle movements.

Self-awareness

Common Misconceptions

An animal's intelligence is closely related to other forms of behavior and features of biology. A common misconception when considering animal behavior is anthropomorphism - endowing animals with human traits. Anthropomorphism was characteristic of early explorers.

Open questions

Issues

An additional obstacle in the process of studying and discussing the obtained research results are both obvious and unstudied, undetected differences in the perception of the world (between the human experimenter and the animal object of the experiment), often anatomically and physiologically determined by evolutionary adaptation to different conditions environment.

Dolphins can serve as a striking example - in their worldview, primary (complex modulation of sounds) and secondary (echolocation) sound information is obviously the main channel for its receipt, and taking into account the known data (about the size of their brain, the complexity of its structure, encephalization coefficient, the complexity of sound communication, as well as living in aquatic environment) - people simply do not have the appropriate tools, concepts, reliable algorithms for processing such data, to understand how they “see” the world around them, and, moreover, to objectively judge their intelligence.

Art

The press widely advertises elephants and other animals painting in the abstract expressionist style. The compositions of large air bubbles stabilized by rapid rotation of water for a period of several minutes, which are created by dolphins, are considered as art.

See also

Literature

• D. McFarland. Animal behavior. Psychobiology, ethology and evolution/trans. from English-M.: "Mir", 1988
• Reznikova Zh. I. “Animal intelligence: from the individual to society”
• Z. A. Zorina, A. A. Smirnova. What did the “talking” monkeys talk about: are higher animals capable of operating with symbols? / scientific ed. I. I. Poletaeva. - M.: Languages ​​of Slavic Cultures, 2006. - 424 p. - ISBN 5-9551-0129-2.
• Roth, Gerhard. The Long Evolution of Brains and Minds. - Dordrecht (The Netherlands) and New York: Springer, 2013. - xvii + 320 p. - ISBN 978-94-007-6258-9.
• Sergeev B.F. Stages of evolution of intelligence. - M.: Nauka, 1986. - 192 p.
• Chauvin R. From bee to gorilla. - M.: Mir, 1965. - 295 p.

Notes

1. Reznikova Zh. I. Intelligence and language of animals and humans.  Fundamentals of cognitive ethology. - M.: Akademkniga, 2005.
2. Animals: reflexes, emotions, motives
3. Monkeys and birds can make guesses
4. Do our little brothers have intelligence?
5. Petrov P. N. Darwin and the meaning of biology (undefined) . - Article synopsis: Petrov N. P. Memorable dates. Darwin and the meaning of biology // Journal of General Biology. - T. 70. - 2009. - No. 5 (September-October). - pp. 356-358. - “Evolutionary theory forms the foundation of all modern biology. Its appearance brought meaning to the science of life, which before Darwin was only a collection of many facts that could not be coordinated within the framework unified theory." Retrieved April 22, 2010. Archived March 15, 2012.
6. Stupina S. B., Filipiechev A. O. Animal psychology: Lecture notes. - M.: Higher education. - P. 4.- “It is traditional to divide the history of zoopsychology into two periods: 1) before the creation of the evolutionary doctrine by Charles Darwin in 1859; 2) the period after Darwin. The term “scientific zoopsychology” is often used for the latter period, thereby emphasizing that before the development of evolutionary teaching, this science did not have a serious basis and therefore could not be considered independent.”
7. Jenkins T. N., Warden C. J., Warner L. H. Comparative Psychology: A Comprehensive Treatise. - N. Y.: The Ronald Press Co, 1935. - T. 1. Principles and Methods. - P. 12. Scores of anecdotal collections appeared in which the tendency to humanize and eulogize the mental powers of higher animals reached the ridiculous… The collections of Romanes, Buchner, Lindsay and Perty are among the most extensive and dependent of those which have survived to our own day.
8. Translation of an excerpt from English participant Tommy Nerd. Quoted from: Romanes G.-J. Animal intelligence. - L.: Kegon Paul, Trench, & Co, 1882. - P. 336.
9. Pavlov I. P. Freedom reflex. - Peter. - P. 84.. We completely forbade ourselves (even a fine was announced in the laboratory) from using such psychological expressions as the dog guessed, wanted, wished, etc. Finally, all the phenomena in which we were interested began to appear to us in a different form.
10. Quoted by Fabry K.E. ISBN 5-89573-051-5 .
11. Fabry K.E. Fundamentals of zoopsychology: Textbook for higher education students educational institutions,. - 3rd. - M.: Russian Psychological Society, 1999. - 464 p. -

Animals are much smarter than we think: they can solve puzzles, learn words, and communicate with each other in far-from-primitive ways.

(Sia Kambou / AFP / Getty Images)

1. Crows can solve puzzles like five-year-olds.

It turns out that crows have the ability to solve problems. The birds were shown cylinders filled with water in which some kind of delicacy was floating. The crows quickly realized that in order to get a tasty treat, it was necessary to raise the water level, so they threw foreign objects into the cylinder. In addition, the birds realized that they would get treats faster from the cylinder, where the water level was higher, and also if they threw heavy objects into the cylinder, which would sink to the bottom rather than float on the surface. In more interesting cases, crows even managed to bend a piece of wire to fish out food from a narrow cylinder. Overall, the researchers concluded that in terms of problem solving, crows are on par with children aged 5-7 years.

2. Dolphins call each other by names, each of which is unique

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Dolphins are very intelligent creatures. In captivity, they can easily be taught to perform various tasks in exchange for a treat, and they can also imitate human behavior for the sake of fun. In the wild, for example, dolphins protect their snouts with sea sponges while hunting spiny fish, and then use their quills to extract eels from crevices. Each dolphin has its own characteristic whistle, which can be interpreted as its name. The dolphin will swim towards the fellow whose whistle sounds related, and will most likely ignore the dolphin, which it does not know. When a female loses her baby, she will make a baby whistle until the baby is found.

3. Elephants can interact with each other and also show empathy.

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For many years, scientists have observed elephants and discovered that they are able to cooperate and communicate effectively. Related elephant families unite and travel in entire clans, communicating using low-frequency sounds. From time to time, they trample circles around their young to protect them from predators, or conduct well-coordinated campaigns to kidnap elephant calves from rival clans to demonstrate their superiority.

In addition, elephants are able to show empathy. In general, animals do not show much interest in their dead relatives: they can sniff them or eat them. Elephants, on the other hand, show emotion towards elephant remains, lingering near them and expressing signs of distress and agitation. In one experiment, African elephants were shown the skulls of an elephant, a buffalo, and a rhinoceros. The elephants focused their attention on the skull of their relative. Finally, the researchers were able to observe how elephants comfort each other. Typically, when an elephant is worried, it makes sounds and raises its ears. Other elephants from his clan approach him, stroke his head with their trunks, or put their trunks in his mouth.

4. Dogs can learn hundreds of words

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There is a lot of evidence of canine intelligence, but one of the most bright examples- This is a collie named Chaser. Psychologist John Pilley trained Chaser to recognize the names of 1,022 different toys. When Pilly named a specific toy, Chaser made the correct choice 95% of the time. Pilley recently taught Chaser verbs in addition to the nouns he already knew. Now the dog can follow orders such as choosing a toy, poking it with its nose, or placing a paw on it. This progress took a lot of time, but it is still an amazing achievement of canine intelligence.

5. Chimpanzees are phenomenal at solving memory puzzles.

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Considering that chimpanzees are our closest relatives, their intelligence is understandable. However, their level of intelligence (in some areas) may well rival that of humans. A chimpanzee named Ayumu, who lives in research institute in Kyoto (Japan), became world famous thanks to his outstanding visual memory. He is shown nine numbers on the screen for a split second, and then Ayumu reproduces their location from memory. Moreover, a chimpanzee can beat any person in this game. Scientists still don't fully understand how Ayumu does this, but they speculate that the chimpanzee is an instant quantifier, meaning he looks at a series of objects and remembers them, rather than counting them sequentially.

6. Cockatoos can pick locks

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Cockatoos, like crows, can solve complex puzzles in order to get a treat. Moreover, the puzzles can be really very complex: for example, opening a box (containing a cashew nut) by first removing the pin, unscrewing and pulling out the bolt, turning the wheel, and finally releasing the latch. This takes a lot of time because cockatoos don't have fingers. One bird took almost two hours to solve this problem, but achieved its goal, proving that birds are capable of setting goals and achieving them. The other birds in the experiment watched the first cockatoo and then completed the task much faster. The puzzle was then changed to place the five steps to open the box in a different order. But the birds coped with this task.

7. Octopuses are very intelligent, but their train of thought is strange and incomprehensible to us.

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The intelligence of the octopus is difficult to study for several reasons: they are aquatic creatures, they practically do not survive in captivity, most of them live deep in the ocean. Their living environment is different from ours, so it is quite understandable that their intellect is aimed at solving and achieving completely different goals. The octopus has the largest brain among invertebrate animals; its brain has more neurons than the human brain. However, 60% of these neurons are located in the tentacles, which means that octopuses have very smart tentacles. If the tentacle is cut off, it can crawl back, grab food and lift it to the place where the mouth should be. In addition, octopuses are great aesthetes and, possibly, colorblind. They collect rocks of specific colors to camouflage their lair, and many species can change color to blend in with their surroundings. There are suggestions that octopuses sense color with their skin and react to it accordingly.