Think Humans Are Smarter Than Animals? Think Again! Some Creatures Have SUPERIOR Brains To Us

Think humans are smarter than animals? Think again! Some creatures have SUPERIOR brains to us - we just don't understand them

• Evolutionary biologists believe that animals can possess cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings
• Scientists from the University of Adelaide said many animals just possess different abilities that are misunderstood by humans
• They cited gibbons’ abilities to make varied sounds with different meanings as proof of this intelligence

Humans have long believed that they are smarter than other animals, but an increasing body of scientific evidence suggests that, as a species, we are just being arrogant.

Evolutionary biologists claim that in some cases animals have superior brains to us and that many of their abilities are merely misunderstood by humans.

They believe that creatures ranging from crows to koalas reveal this intelligence is widespread in the animal kingdom.





Gibbons, for example, can produce 20 varied sounds with clearly different meanings that allow them to communicate across tropical forest canopy


THE GENIUS OF ANIMALS

Levels of perception in animals have been studied in many species and these processes can go beyond those found in humans, such as echolocation in bats and dolphins, motion detection by skin receptors in fish and the ability to see ultraviolet light in birds.

Research into attention and expectation indicates that birds, mammals and reptiles are similar to humans. In one experiment a common pigeon could distinguish between a light and noise to anticipate a treat.

Another experiment found that birds tend to catch the same type of insect repeatedly because prey selection is caused by an attentional bias that improves detection of one type of insect while suppressing detection of others.

Different types of memory have been detected in animals and scientists have explored the spatial memory of scatter-hoarder animals such as certain jays, tits and squirrels, whose ecological niches require them to remember the locations of thousands of caches, often following radical changes in the environment.

Tool use has been reported many times in both wild and captive primates, particularly the great apes.

The use of tools by primates is varied and includes hunting fish, collecting honey, processing food such as nuts, collecting water, weapons and shelter.

Research in 2007 shows that chimpanzees in the Fongoli savannah sharpen sticks to use as spears when hunting, considered the first evidence of systematic use of weapons in a species other than humans.

Several species of birds including parrots and owls have been recorded as using tools in the wild.

One species examined extensively under laboratory conditions is the New Caledonian crow.

One individual called Betty spontaneously made a wire tool to solve a novel problem in the laboratory.

It is clear that animals are capable of solving a range of problems that are argued to involve abstract reasoning.

Research has shown that the performances of Wolfgang Köhler's chimpanzees, who could achieve spontaneous solutions to problems without training, were by no means unique to that species and that apparently similar behaviour can be found in animals usually thought of as much less intelligent, if appropriate training is given.

For example, the gibbon's ability to make varied sounds with different meanings, the koala's sophisticated method of marking its environment and domestic pets’ abilities to control humans are cited as evidence for this intelligence.

‘For millennia, all kinds of authorities from religion to scholars have been repeating the same idea ad nauseam, that humans are exceptional by virtue that they are the smartest in the animal kingdom,’ said Dr Arthur Saniotis, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide’s School of Medical Sciences.

‘However, science tells us that animals can have cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings,’ he said.

The belief that humans have superior intelligence harks back to the Agricultural Revolution some 10,000 years ago when people began producing cereals and domesticating animals.

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