- [Narrator] We tend to think of animals as mindless beasts,
driven solely by instinct but the reality is
that it really depends on the animal.
Several animals shine above the rest when it comes to
intelligence and cleverness so to help you find out
about the wonders of nature and just who is who
in terms of animal smarts,
we bring you the 10 Smartest Animals.
A reasonably popular pet, the African grey parrot
is renowned throughout the world for its uncanny ability
to imitate human speech and virtually any sound
in its immediate environment.
And for that alone, they are prized as pets
but their abilities don't just stop there.
African grey parrots are also among the most intelligent
of birds and according to scientists,
are able to perform cognitive tasks akin to
a five-year-old human child.
In fact, the animal cognition specialist, Irene Pepperberg,
has shown that they can acquire a vocabulary
of over 100 words.
They say elephants have a long memory
and that is truly no exaggeration.
Having the largest brain mass of any land animal
and having a similar degree of neuronal connectivity
to humans, elephants are animal powerhouses.
Thought to play a key role in elephant intelligence,
as well as that of primates and whales, are spindle neurons,
which are unique to these categories of animals.
When an elephant dies, elephants who were familiar
with the deceased elephant will gather around it
and pay their final tribute, something only an animal
with sufficient cognition can do.
African elephants, for example, are known the chew
the leaves of a tree that help induce labor,
a practice common to humans in Kenya,
as well as using various tools in conjunction
with their trunks.
You may be shocked to hear this but octopi
are surprisingly intelligent.
They have the largest brains of any invertebrate
and are capable of learning behavior that no one
would think is possible, such as repetitive tasks.
What is even stranger, however, is the fact that of its
130 billion neurons, 3/5 of them reside in their tentacles,
which is just freaky.
It has even been reported that a severed arm from an octopus
is capable of independent actions.
Severed arms have enough neurons to be able to continue
to move along the sea bed, seize food,
and attempt to pass the food to its mouth as if it were
still connected to the rest of its body.
The crow just might be the smartest bird of all.
With a brain-to-body ratio surpassing that of most animals,
crows display truly remarkable intelligence and this
puts them on a similar level to that of primates.
Crows can recognize individual human faces and, apparently,
can engage in trade and barter as well.
A family in Seattle, Washington, for example,
has been feeding crows that have been visiting them
for some time and in exchange,
the crows bring back gifts in return.
The little girl in the family has documented more than 70
such gifts, often in the form of trinkets.
Shocking to some as it may be, but the pig is one of the
smartest, cleanest, and agreeable
domestic animals out there.
Pigs understand how mirrors work and can navigate
around them in order to find food,
having understood that the reflection isn't real.
They also can engage in problem solving,
such as figuring their way around a maze
and have an excellent long-term memory allowing them
to recognize familiar objects
after a great deal of time has passed.
Our closely related cousins, the chimpanzees,
show a remarkable degree of similarity to us both in terms
of our capacity of violence as well as intelligence.
These animals display an incredible ability to use tools,
such as using and shaping sticks in order to dine on
termites, which they poke into termite mounds
and use to probe and fish them out
and using stone cleavers and weights to crack open nuts.
Interestingly, and perhaps more terrifying,
are chimpanzee war bands, which are organized troops
of males that group up in a sophisticated strategy
to hunt down monkeys together,
eating their meat as a reward.
Sometimes the similarities to humans are eerie
but they're also helpful in order for us to better
understand how we got here.
The border collie is universally recognized as the most
intelligent breed of dog.
This is because of its heritage as a working dog
that had to employee smarts on the go in order
to take care of the herds they were in charge of,
which forced it to evolve a sharp mind.
Border collies can learn tricks faster than other breeds
and have been known to be able to solve complex puzzles
that even chimpanzees cannot,
such as treats hidden under multiple objects
by quickly figuring out the right one.
And, of course, they are among the easiest dogs to train
in the world making them the full package deal
when it comes to intelligence.
Bottle nose dolphins are among the smartest animals
on the planet.
How do we know this?
Well, they can recognize themselves in the mirror,
for starters, which only a few animals can do.
And each dolphin can vocalize in a unique way,
indicating individual identity.
Bottle nose dolphins, like chimpanzees, also use tools,
such as improvised shovels made of sea sponges used
to dig up the ocean bottom to search for food.
And, perhaps, even stranger, they seem to share a strange
bond with humans.
There have been many documented cases
of bottle nose dolphins protecting swimmers from sharks
while swimming around in circles fending off the sharks
until help arrives.
And they often help fisherman by driving shoals of fish
into their nets.
No one really knows why they do this but one thing is clear,
these are deliberate, conscious, and intelligent actions.
The orca is a truly amazing animal being both the
king of the sea and the most intelligent animal
in the oceans.
Orcas engage in complex communication that might be called
language and different pods from different parts
of the world even sound different,
just like different human languages.
What is most remarkable about the orca, however,
is its refined and generationally taught hunting technique,
which differs from region to region and pod to pod.
In the Antarctic, orca pods are known to engage in
synchronized swimming generating waves together
to push off seals on ice floats.
Orcas have even been known to hunt great white sharks,
employing a special technique where they ram the shark
from the underside inducing a state called tonic immobility
where the shark goes into a paralyzed state,
eventually drowning as it can no longer move water
through its gills.
No other animal can challenge the orca in terms
of both power, versatility, and intelligence.
Humans generally do not think of themselves as animals
but we are.
We are the products of millions of years of evolution
and somehow, some way, winners in a cosmic lottery
that endowed us with the big brains we have today.
We might take cars, computers, and flight for granted
because we have grown accustomed to it all but the reality
is that for the longest time, tens of thousands of years
passed with little to no innovation and now we send people
into space, explore the ocean depths,
have conversations with people thousands of miles away,
and transplant hearts into people.
Man truly is the smartest animal the world has ever known.
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And thanks for watching and thanks for learning.