Very clever animals

[Catherine]

I found a list of examples of animal intelligence.  It is amazing how clever some animals are.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0
I think the African Grey Parrot is special.
The ones I have known are very clever. 
Of course all the great apes are clever. It is interesting to see the variations  and differences in the area of intelligence.

Dogs are more loyal, but many other animals are more clever than a dog.

[Tobi]

I think crows are pretty clever.
One day I was walking along and a crow made a noise like a dog! It seemed to be communicating with two other crows. A few minutes later further on and round a couple of bends we met people walking 2 dogs.
Okay, that could have been co-incidence....but
Crows also made sounds like ducks, sheep, pigs, and when a little way further on during the walk we saw those animals nearby.

Also, when I listen for a while to some birds, their voices are more like conversation than just 'singing'. Especially the Blackbirds, and I have heard other birds do it, though not as eloquently as the Blackbird. I am convinced that a deep study of that would reveal a complex language.
I was tempted to write to David Attenborough about it, to see what he thought, but haven't yet as I didn't want to hassle him with questions.

[Catherine]

I think crows are that smart. I am not surprised that they would give a specific alert about certain animals.

 We think we are so smart because we have language, but I think many animals have some form of language.  I saw dwarf hamsters communicate with each other. They are able to get across some pretty complicated ideas.

Lets face it, animals are very intelligent and we are not intelligent enough to measure their intelligence.

[LPC]

Good find, Catherine. I have bookmarked that page and may well add it to the "Further reading" section on my website - https://do-animals-have-souls.info/further-reading.html (second section - animal intelligence). Your link is more recent than some of those on that page.

One creature worth remembering, too, is the dolphin. Denise Herzing has worked for years on their whistles and trying to decode their language. Two years ago, she actually had the first word translated by her computer. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...aweed.html

[platy]

Recently published research
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-primates/

[Catherine]

There is a lot of information in both those articles.

I have always believed that animals are smarter than they were thought to be. I have suspected that many species have some level of language. It is exciting that research is moving in that direction. We may be very surprized when we finally figure it out.

It would be wonderful if we ever reached a point where we can talk to them. Of course we may not like what some animals will have to say to us.

[platy]

Here's another one, PhD research work by my friend Kasun.
https://cie-deakin.com/2016/06/23/cie-sp...g-seabird/

Basically he looked at how little ravens predate some sea birds, and footage from camera traps actually shows ravens working together to get into little penguin nests (natural nests are sometimes in bushes). They'll attack the bush for hours until they create a gap for them to get through, while the other raven may distract the adult penguins.
Some birds are definitely up there when it comes to intelligence and tool use.

[Catherine]

It looks interesting. I will give it a read when I get home from work tomorrow.