Human beings have the tendency to feel overly secure in their position at the top of the food chain. We take for granted the fact that we are the most intelligent animals on the planet without ever actually considering what it is that sets us apart. Is it object permanence, the ability to plan, tool usage, or the fact that we build complex social relationships? Other animal species possess some of those traits, and some exhibit them all.
Survival simply wouldn’t be possible for many species without their specialized intelligence. Remembering routes and landmarks throughout their habitat helps many animals navigate safely and locate food. Some must remember strategies for evading and outwitting predators to avoid becoming a meal themselves. And lots of animals develop an amount of emotional intelligence that may surprise you.
Animal intelligence is hard to pin down because “intelligence” takes different forms. Examples of types of intelligence include language comprehension, self-recognition, cooperation, altruism, problem-solving, and mathematics skills. It’s easy to recognize intelligence in other primates, but there are many other species that may be smarter than you think.
Here are the top 10 smartest animals in the world.
Chimpanzees are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, so it’s unsurprising they display intelligence similar to that of humans. Chimpanzees make tools and use them to acquire foods and for social displays; they have sophisticated hunting strategies requiring cooperation, influence and rank; they are status conscious, manipulative and capable of deception; they can learn to use symbols and understand aspects of human language including some relational syntax, concepts of number and numerical sequence; and they are capable of spontaneous planning for a future state or event. Chimps also recognize themselves in a mirror.
2. Elephants
Elephants have the largest brains of any land animal. The cortex of an elephant’s brain has as many neurons as a human brain. Elephants have exceptional memories, cooperate with each other, exhibit mirror self-recognition, an indication of self-awareness and cognition. Elephants are known to use tools, but not as advanced as that by chimpanzees. They are popularly thought of as having an excellent memory. Elephants appear to have some ritual around death and show a keen interest in the bones of their own kind. Like primates and birds, they engage in play.
3. Dolphins
A dolphin has a large brain relative to its body size. The cortex of a human brain is highly convoluted, but a dolphin brain has even more folds! Dolphins and their kin are the only marine animals that have passed the mirror test of self-awareness. They are known to engage in complex play behavior and have great communication skills. Dolphins have been recently observed using tools in a basic matter: when searching for food on the sea floor, many dolphins were seen tearing off pieces of sponge and wrapping them around their “bottlenose” to prevent abrasions.
4. Parrots
Parrots are thought to be as smart as a human child. These birds solve puzzles and also understand the concept of cause and effect. Parrots are able to mimic human speech, but the African Grey parrot, a bird known for its astounding memory and ability to count, is able to associate words with their meanings and form simple sentences. African Grey parrots can learn an impressive number of human words and use them in context to communicate with people. Some species of parrot such as the Kea are also highly skilled at using tools and solving puzzles.
5. Sheep
Sheep can recognize individual human faces, and remember them for years. In addition to long-term facial recognition of individuals, sheep can also differentiate emotional states through facial characteristics. If worked with patiently, sheep may learn their names.It has been reported that some sheep have apparently shown problem-solving abilities.
6. Rats
Rats show excellent problem solving skills. They have also been found to be actively prosocial. They demonstrate altruistic behaviour to other rats in experiments, including freeing them from cages. When presented with readily available chocolate chips, test subjects would first free the caged rat, and then share the food.
7. Dogs
Man’s best friend uses its intelligence to relate to humans. Dogs understand emotions, show empathy, and understand symbolic language. Dogs are pack animals by nature and can understand social structure and obligations, and are capable of interacting with other members of the pack. They are known to be highly intelligent and very easy to train by humans. The average dog understands around 165 human words. However, they can learn many more.
8. Octopuses
The Octopus is considered the most intelligent invertebrates. The octopus has the largest brain of any invertebrate, yet three-fifths of its neurons are actually in its arms. The octopus is the only invertebrate that uses tools. They show impressive spatial learning capacity, navigational abilities, and predatory techniques. It has also been claimed that octopuses practice observational learning.
9. Crows
Crows recognize human faces, communicate complex concepts with other crows, and think about the future. The crow’s intelligence compares to that of a 7-year-old human child. These birds are the only non-primate vertebrates that invent their own tools. Some crows have been found to engage in feats such as sports, tool use, the ability to hide and store food across seasons and episodic-like memory. Crows have also shown the ability to manufacture and use their own tools in the day-to-day search for food. Crows have demonstrated the ability to distinguish individual humans by recognizing facial features.
10. Pigeons
Pigeons can be taught relatively complex actions and response sequences and can learn to make responses in different sequences. Pigeons can also remember large numbers of individual images for a long time, e.g. hundreds of images for periods of several years.
Conclusion
Humans are extremely proud of their capacity for thought. If we approach it from this angle, the smartest animal on Earth will always be us, humans. However, intelligence is not a limited concept. As a result, some other creatures may also be quite intelligent. The animals on this list have evolved over thousands of years and learned to survive and successfully adapt to the modern environment. Therefore, keep in mind that there are animals in the world with intelligence levels above par with humans.
