It’s often said that an elephant never forgets, but which creatures are regarded in scientific communities as the smartest animals on earth? From chimpanzees to whales to ants to even sheep, there’s a lot more to these guys than meets the eye.
It turns out there are a lot of animals that are probably smarter than we think. If we only had a clear way to communicate with them, we’d really be able to understand what’s going on in their cute little minds.
Chimpanzees
Chimpanzees have the closest genetic code to humans. We share 98.6 percent of our DNA with them, and it shows, not only in our physical appearance but in our brainpower too. Chimps are so smart; they can figure out how to use tools to accomplish specific goals.
Chimps are also widely recognized by scientists to use language with each other. They use at least 58 unique gestures for communication. Researchers watched them throw stones at trees, leaving the rocks behind, for no reason at all, which seems to indicate that they also have rituals.
Elephants
The saying about elephants never forgetting has its root in the fact that they genuinely do have excellent memories. They can remember things like routes to the nearest water supply, even if the route is really far or years have passed since they last went.
Elephants also remember friends (and likely foes too). In one instance in 1999, Shirley, the elephant, arrived at an elephant sanctuary, and upon meeting another resident elephant, Jenny, they immediately recognized each other and started playing. It turns out they knew each other from 22 years back when they performed together at a circus.
Bottlenose Dolphins
The bottlenose dolphin’s brain to body mass ratio, one might think those dolphins are as smart as us humans. Why? Because, outside of humans, they have the biggest brains for their body size in the entire animal kingdom. They don’t let those giant brains go to waste either.
Bottlenose dolphins, as well as most kinds of dolphins, have advanced communication skills which seem to be a complex language of their own, are highly creative, and can even recognize themselves in a mirror. What’s more, aside from their ability to communicate with one another, they also can talk intelligently with humans.
Whales
Whales have advanced abilities in recalling, reasoning, recognizing, perceiving, communicating, problem-solving, understanding, and adapting to change. Perhaps this is why they’re such successful animals. For instance, the blue whale, the largest known living creature, has one predator only: killer whales, who are a fraction of their size.
Also, whale songs, or the loud melodic tones that certain whale species create, often have the complexity of human music. And whales will “sing” these songs together in perfect harmony even when they are miles apart. Sometimes whales use their tones to communicate something important, while other times, they’re just socializing.
Pigs
Pigs are some of the smartest animals in the world. Some scientists even think they are smarter than chimps. The reason for this is they have seen pigs play video games more successfully than chimps. That does seem to be an indication that pigs are pretty smart.
Their object-location memory is phenomenal, too. Once they’ve found food in a location, they’ll go back there next time, thinking it might be there. Perhaps even more impressive is that pigs can find their way home, even from a very long distance away.
Dogs
We love dogs because they are loyal and adorable, but it turns out, many breeds are also quite intelligent. They can learn new skills rapidly and easily in response to training, and certain breeds, like Labradors and Poodles, notice even the most minute changes to an environment.
Science has noted that dogs have the capacity to understand around 250 human words and gestures and can count as high as five. This is all on top of their acute social awareness and intelligence, which is likely why we fell in love with dogs in the first place.
Parrots
Parrots have become famous for mimicking human speech, but their intelligence goes a lot further than that. Part of the reason they are able to imitate human speech so well is because of their amazing memories. And studies have shown that the grey parrot can associate words with meanings and make simple sentences on their own.
Furthermore, grey parrots can communicate their desires to humans, count, add, subtract, and have also been witnessed understanding zero as a concept. Their extreme intelligence comes from a neural circuit in their brains very similar to what humans and primates have.
Octopuses
Octopuses are quite clever sea creatures. It’s been well-documented at this point that they have an outstanding ability to escape captivity, even in the direst of circumstances. For this, we can be sure they are making use of their brain’s 200 million neurons.
Another indication of their great intellectual prowess is the fact that they hate being bored and have learned how to use tools. While they are not capable of conscious thought, it is actually kind of scary to think about what octopuses would be capable of if they did.
Cats
A cat’s excellent hunting ability certainly does not come from luck. It comes from their astute sensory abilities and intelligence. And while it is true that cats are not as trainable as dogs, that is not an indicator of being less smart.
Cats, in fact, have 300 million neurons in their brains, while dogs only have 160 million. This extensive brainpower leads to rational thought and the ability to solve problems and make smart decisions. Plus, behaviorists have found that cats can recognize object impermanence. For cats, out of sight does not necessarily mean out of mind.
Crows
A crow’s facial recognition is borderline scary. They can recognize people even if they’re not in or near the environment they originally saw them. Crows are also known to be grudge-holders. If a person has treated them fairly in the past, they’ll remember it. If they haven’t or if they’ve felt cheated by a person, they’ll avoid them from there on out.
What’s even more incredible is that one kind of crow, the New Caledonian crow, has demonstrated that they can comprehend cause and effect relationships as well as children who are seven years old.
Squirrels
Squirrels are so much more than the cute and quick little animals running across your yard. They are actually very smart animals. In fact, without their intelligence, they probably would not be able to survive winters. Their cleverness has led them to be able to gather and store food that they will need in the future.
Squirrels also have great memories and seem to be able to learn by observing other squirrels. On that same note, one experiment ended up proving that squirrels are adept at problem-solving when they tried out various techniques to open a locked box.
Bees
Did you know that bees might be able to tell the difference between a Picasso and a Monet painting? This is thanks to their visual processing skills, and there’s more where that came from. Another of bees’ other skills include learning and performing tasks in order to get a reward.
Bees can also communicate with each other, and they do so by dancing, jostling, and head-butting. Their group decision-making skills are on point too. When bees have outgrown their hive, hundred of bees will go scout new hive locations, and they’ll choose the new location through a vote.
Raccoons
The curiosity of a raccoon is indicative of their intelligence. Combined with that curiosity is also some great problem-solving abilities as well as an innate cleverness in their ability to find food. How could they dig through a garbage can so human-like and end up coming out with exactly the food they were looking for?
It has also been confirmed by scientists that raccoons have as many neurons in their brains as dogs. Even more, the size of their brain compared to their number of neurons is comparable to a primate, some of the most intelligent animals out there.
Sheep
People often think of sheep as being unintelligent, as when a person mindlessly follows another, they call them a “sheep.” However, we’ve got sheep all wrong, because they’re actually pretty smart. Their memories are outstanding as well as their ability to recognize faces.
One study showed that sheep are so smart, they can remember up to 50 faces for over two years. Another study found that sheep can figure out how to get out of a difficult maze. And the ones who found their way out the fastest waited at the exit to help their friends get out too.
Ravens
Just like their cousin, the crow, ravens are sharp birds. They do things like pre-plan tasks, learn how to use tools, and even recognize when a tool worked before and opt to use it again 24 hours later. This is something not even monkeys have been able to do.
Planning a task ahead of time is actually a behavior that researchers thought only humans could do, so realizing that ravens can do it too has put them in a whole other category of intelligence. And if that weren’t enough, it seems ravens even know how to skillfully barter, too.
Horses
Many people seem to think horses aren’t very smart compared to other domesticated animals, but it turns out, that’s not true at all. When studied, it was determined that horses are rather intelligent after all. They can recognize human emotions, which they often respond to in endearing ways.
Also, horses have learned how to communicate with us in a sort of sign language. One experiment showed that horses learned to tell humans whether or not they wanted to wear a rug. When it was sunny, they didn’t want one, but when it was cold or wet, they did.
Baboons
One of the reasons humans and baboons have a history of conflict has to do with how smart baboons are. It is their incredible ability to adapt that puts us at odds with them, in the end. We infringe on their natural habitat, and they simply adapt to the new environment, so they start defending the cash crops that have replaced their home.
Baboons are also extremely social animals, and they maintain relationships for many reasons, some of them strategic, just like humans. Their relationships expand beyond just kin too, and their relationships often last a long time.
Cockatoos
Some of the most social birds, cockatoos are also highly intelligent. Like, the parrot, they can widely imitate human sounds and speech, an impressive feat on its own. However, cockatoos can also learn how to resist the temptation for food if they think a better reward is awaiting them at a later time.
A famous experiment once put a bunch of toddlers in a room with some tasty treats. The toddlers learned that if they waited to eat their treats for 15 minutes, they would then get an extra treat. The fact that cockatoos can realize that too is amazing.
Rats
We happen to know that rats are intelligent little creatures because they have frequently been used for science and medical trials to test things for humans. What researchers have learned is that rats are extremely curious, have great memories, and are easy to train.
Shockingly, one study on rats in 2015 found that, sometimes, when rats are given the same tasks as humans, the rats outperform the humans. How that could be true given that a rat brain is so much smaller and simpler than the human brain is the subject of another conversation.
Chickens
The way chickens seem to wander around aimlessly tends to make humans think they are not very intelligent, but the truth is another story. In fact, chickens show many signs of advanced intelligence. For one, they make social groups amongst themselves and use 24 unique cries to communicate with each other.
Chickens are also quite good at problem-solving, can anticipate future events, and seem to exercise characteristics of self-awareness too. Even more, much like the human brain, the chicken brain is divided into a left and right hemisphere, with each side specializing in different things.
Orangutans
Orangutan intelligence is far-reaching, and there’s lots of research to prove it. One major sign of their intelligence is their ability to grasp the concept of the future. They even seem to be able to plan for the future. Orangutans have been observed setting aside objects, like rocks, that they later use for something else, like as ammunition.
Organtan’s have also shown their ability to plan travel routes and then communicate the route in advance within their group. Besides just planning for the future, orangutans have a sophisticated grasp of communication, including the use of body language and facial expressions.
Pigeons
Most humans assume that pigeons are not the smartest of birds, but the opposite is actually true. Pigeons are some of the smartest birds on the planet. For instance, studies have tested their math skills, and it turns out they can count up to three.
Pigeons may also be able to understand abstract concepts like space and time similar to how humans understand it. These street birds are also remarkably easy to train. It seems that anything you can train a monkey to do, you can also train a pigeon to do. That’s intelligence, plain and simple.
Ducks
Ducks have this fantastic ability to imprint upon a mother figure, meaning that the first mother figure they see becomes their “mom.” Sometimes that mother figure is a duck, or sometimes it is an entirely different animal, like a dog or a human. This may not seem smart at first but wait for it.
The fact that ducks can do this could be a sign that they can understand the abstract concept of “same” versus “different.” Abstract reasoning is no joke. Not many animals have this ability, and the ones that do, like primates, are considered to be highly intelligent.
Sea Lions
Compared to their size, sea lions have quite large brains. Their large brains might just be the reason they are the only animal other than humans that are able to use basic logic. One particular sea lion named Rio was able to solve certain IQ tests that even humans couldn’t solve.
Aside from their ability to use logic, sea lions are very easy to train, another sign of advanced intelligence. For this reason, they have always been popular at aquarium shows. Sea lions have been trained by the US military to protect naval ships from potential threats.
Ants
An ant’s brain is huge for its body. That being said, ants on their own aren’t typically the smartest. Put them together with lots of other ants, though, and they show incredible intellectual prowess in their ability to organize and collaborate.
The collective intelligence of ants is pretty uncanny. When they work together, they can come up with the most efficient path between their food and their home, for instance. One researcher, Jürgen Kurths, wrote in a 2014 paper that a group of ants is more efficient at processing information than a Google search.
Squid
It’s not surprising that squid are some of the smartest creatures in the sea, knowing that humans and squid brain cells are remarkably similar. They’re so similar that scientists have studied sections of a squid’s brain in an attempt to understand better how our own brains work. Squid brains have specifically been studied to find cures for Alzheimer’s.
The squid’s excellent ability to communicate and be social has also allowed them to become better hunters when they work together as a team. Their ability to successfully coordinate as they attack their prey has researchers amazed at their intelligence.
Cows
Cows do seem like simple creatures, the way they casually stand around and do basically nothing all day. Despite that, what’s going on on the inside appears to be quite complex. Cows are intelligent beings with complicated emotions.
Their impressive long-term memories likely have something to do with this, not to mention their experience of a wide range of emotions, such as pain, fear, and anxiety. Cows are also able to learn new and unique tasks quickly and can figure out where a moving object is located. They can differentiate between one human and another as well.
Portia Labiata Jumping Spiders
Spiders overall are pretty smart, but the Portia Labiata Jumping Spider tops them all where intelligence is concerned. Their hunting abilities truly show how these magnificent little creatures shine. While most spiders can’t see that well, jumping spiders can, and they use that eyesight for masterful trickery.
Jumping spiders lure spiders out of their web by learning how to imitate the spider’s prey. This causes the spider to leave its web, and that’s exactly when the jumping spider attacks and eats it. The complex nature of this scheme proves that jumping spiders are a force to be reckoned with.
Bonobos
A close relative to chimpanzees, bonobos also perform at a very high intellectual level. Their ability to not only learn but expertly use language is quite remarkable. One bonobo in particular, Kanzi, actually understands roughly 3,000 English words.
A beautiful display of Kanzi’s understanding and communication abilities was demonstrated when he went on an outing in the forest. There, he touched the symbols he learned for “fire” and “marshmallow” to communicate that he wanted to roast some marshmallows. He was then provided with matches and twigs, and he happily began roasting his marshmallows.
Goats
Goats eat clothes. They are also famous for being stubborn. However, what most people don’t know is they are really good and figuring out puzzles. In one study, researchers provided goats with a puzzle that included a level that could provide access to a tasty snack.
Most of the goats in the experiment successfully solved the puzzle. Perhaps that alone isn’t that impressive, but the fact that the same goats were given the same puzzle 10 months later and were able to solve the puzzle much more quickly this time is another story. That’s quite the long-term memory.
Jess Lakritz 