Humans are the smartest animals on the planet. Intelligence has allowed humanity to spread throughout the globe, to adapt for itself all the places that can only be reached, and even get beyond the planet.
Such success creates some illusion that all other animals are intellectually poorly developed and that everything that is available to them in life is the simplest actions for feeding and breeding. But in fact, some species of animals have acquired abilities and skills that are close to human ones. Let's look at some of the most gifted representatives of the animal world.
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzees are the closest relatives of humans from all animals and their intelligence is very well developed compared to other animals. Let's start with the simplest thing - chimpanzees know how to use tools. They use sticks to pick open anthills and mine ants and stones to crack hard nuts.
Moreover, they can process their tools - for example, to clean sticks of extra branches and leaves. Even chimpanzees recognize themselves in the mirror - an ability that the vast majority of animals do not have. Now the more impressive abilities of our smaller brothers, chimpanzees, can learn to use the language of the deaf and dumb if they are taught long and hard.
Moreover, there is a known case when a female chimpanzee, who was taught to use the language of the deaf, taught him her cub herself. But this is only when communicating with people and hard work. And in the wild, chimpanzee families can use fire for their own purposes.When a fire occurs in the savannah, they walk some distance beyond the wall of the flame and eat animals that have died and were fried during the fire.
And the most interesting thing is that recently chimpanzees have recently discovered something like religion. Members of some groups of chimpanzees, passing strictly defined trees, throw stones at them. It is not yet possible to logically explain this - there is no practical meaning in such behavior, it is believed that this is some simple form of ritual action.
Australian falcons
In the language of the Australian aborigines, to designate three different species of birds of prey (black kites, whistles and brown falcons), there is one word that can be translated as “fire bird”. Why are they called that?
The fact is that Australian birds have learned to maintain, renew, and even start fires. They fly over burning forests and fields, and if the fire begins to die out, grab the fireballs from it and transfer it to the place where they will definitely flare up and start a new fire.
Sometimes birds even snatch smoldering sticks from bonfires. Predators need fire to drive small animals out of shelters - their main prey. A whole scientific group from Australia is now studying this phenomenon.
Elephants
Elephants are the largest land animals on the planet, and in addition, one of the most intelligent. These giants have a phenomenal memory - they are able to keep in their mind many kilometers of routes to watering holes for years, remember and distinguish human speech.
So, after hearing a conversation from a tribe of hunters whose representatives attack elephants, animals try to leave, and the speech of harmless collectors does not scare them at all. Elephants can recognize people they know or other elephants, even if they have not seen them for many years.
Sometimes they use simple tools, there are cases when an elephant dug a hole with sticks to get to the water, and then covered it with bark of wood to prevent moisture from evaporating.
Some elephants can carry out simple arithmetic operations - they understand if the number of objects presented to them increases or decreases. They know the properties of some plants - when an elephant is about to give birth, she eats leaves that stimulate contractions.
Killer whales
Killer whales have developed social structures. Most of them live in families, and cubs are tutored and trained by all members of the flock together. Whales also hunt together, communicating with the help of an advanced system of sound signals.
By the way, not all killer whales use the same sounds. There are many “dialects” that individual families use. There are killer whales and killer whales, these two populations hardly interact, and both developed sophisticated hunting systems. For example, predatory killer whales explore a section of shallow water where they plan to hunt, and some even learned how to push seals from ice into the water, pushing ice and catching waves from it.
