● Humans are supposed to be the smartest animals on the planet, with our use of language,
tools and technology.
But does that really make people the most intelligent?
Are there any creatures that could make a fool of us?
Here are the times that animals outsmarted humans.
15 - Kelly the Dolphin ● The Institute for Marine Mammal studies
in Mississippi had a clever way of keeping its dolphin enclosure clean.
Any dolphin that brought a piece of floating trash to a trainer would get a fish as a reward.
One clever female, named Kelly, realised that the size of the litter was irrelevant, so
she kept large pieces of paper at the bottom of the pool and tore off strips to get herself
as much fish as possible.
The dolphin found a way to train the humans.
14 - Lock-Breaking Monkeys ● In 2012, staff at a Brazilian zoo were
on the hunt for eight escaped capuchin monkeys.
The monkeys had escaped by using stones as hammers to break open the locks on their cages.
Capuchin monkeys have also been observed using tools in the wild to break open food like
nuts.
Three of the monkeys were found within a few hours, and a fourth was eventually picked
up in a local restaurant but four Capuchins remain free to this day.
13 - Bulletproof Elk ● A researcher in Canada noticed that once
female elk reach a certain age, they almost never fall victim to human hunters.
To find out why, he studied the behaviour of the elk and noticed that they acted differently
during hunting seasons.
When it was open season for rifle hunters, the elk would stand still more and avoid roads,
but during bow hunting season, the elk would stick to rugged, difficult terrains, showing
that the deer learned to recognise hunter types.
12 - Russian Tank Dogs ● During World War Two, the Russian army
attempted to train dogs to destroy German tanks.
The canines were fitted with explosives which had timer or contact detonators and trained
to run underneath the tanks.
However, many of the Russian dogs had learned to find tanks by the smell of diesel, which
was used by the Russian tanks, whereas the Germans used gasoline.
So the Soviets had effectively created an army of dogs that blew up their own tanks.
11 - Shrek the Sheep ● In 1998, a four-year-old sheep named Shrek
wandered off from his herd and hid in a cave.
He managed to stay there avoiding recapture for six years, until eventually the farmer
found him.
Over this time, Shrek had grown nearly thirty kilos of wool on his back, which made him
look like a giant walking marshmallow.
The shearing of Shrek was broadcast on national tv in New Zealand, which must have been exciting
viewing.
10 - Escaping Octopus ● The octopus is considered to be the most
intelligent invertebrate in all the animal kingdom, and Inky, an octopus at the New Zealand
National Aquarium, is no exception.
When a member of staff left his lid slightly open, Inky slid out of his tank and dragged
himself across the floor of the centre towards a drainpipe that led 50 metres to the sea.
Other octopuses have even been known to climb onto boats to steal fish.
9 - Chimpanzee Memory ● A study in 2007 tested the ability of
chimpanzees to memorise the order of numbers flashed on a screen.
Numbers between 1 and 10 would appear very quickly on a touchscreen and the chimps would
have to touch where the numbers were in the correct order.
Amazingly, not only did they complete the task, but the apes actually outperformed the
humans who took the same test, suggesting that they possess mental abilities which we’ve
lost.
8 - Fu Manchu ● Fu Manchu was a young male orangutan at
Omaha Zoo whom the zookeepers kept finding in other animals’ enclosures.
The head keeper assumed that the cage was being left unlocked, but when he lay in wait
to watch, he saw Fu climb down a ventilation shaft, inch open a locked furnace door and
somehow unlock it from the inside.
The next day, the keeper found a piece of wire in the orangutan’s mouth, which he’d
been using to open the lock.
7 - Crows of Kyushu ● On the southern Japanese island of Kyushu,
an electric company is engaged with a battle for supremacy over the regions’ power lines.
The large-beaked Jungle crow has a habit of building its nests on power lines, causing
blackouts in some areas and also stealing pieces of wire and cable for use in its nests.
The company set up a crow patrol to destroy the nests, but the birds responded by building
decoy nests, doubling the company’s workload. 6 - Indian Elephants
● Farmers in parts of Asia have had to come up with some creative solutions to prevent
herds of wild elephants from stealing their crops.
One method is to erect electric fences around the land, which shocks the elephants but rarely
causes serious harm.
However a group of elephants in Indonesia managed to escape their reserve and take down
the electric fences using tree trunks ripped from the ground, so they could chow down on
a field of peanuts.
5 - African Elephants ● Meanwhile in Africa, illegal hunting is
threatening the population of elephants in countries like Kenya, as the trade in ivory
tusks pushes greedy poachers to kill.
But tracking data shows that the elephants are learning which places and people to trust.
Despite there being no markings, the elephants have figured out which zones of the national
park are protected, and can also tell the difference between a team of armed park rangers
and a group of poachers. 4 - Ai Hin the Panda
● Pandas are notorious for their low birth rate, so when females at the Chengdu breeding
research centre in China show signs of pregnancy, the staff will quickly move the panda to a
single room, with air conditioning, round-the-clock care and limitless food.
One clever female, named Ai Hin, figured this out and started faking the symptoms of being
pregnant, just to get an upgraded suite and room service!
3 - The Tamworth Two ● In 1998, two pigs were being unloaded
from a truck to be slaughtered at the abattoir.
But the two siblings managed to squeeze through a fence, swim across a river and disappear,
prompting all of England and the rest of the world to suddenly become excited by the legend
of the Tamworth Two, who were named Butch and Sundance.
When the precocious piggies were eventually found, their lives were spared and they were
even made the subject of a movie.
2 - Fox, Kangaroo and Boar ● In an amazing display of inter-species
co-operation, three kangaroos escaped from a zoo in Frankfurt by first crawling out of
their enclosure using a hole dug by a fox, and then getting under the exterior fence
using a hole dug by a wild boar.
Two of the kangaroos were recaptured, but the other disappeared into the wild.
It just shows what you can achieve with a little teamwork.
1 - Mud Creek Grizzly ● For years, scientists at the Glacier National
Park in Montana have been studying the behaviour of bears, often by setting up research points
that either trap or photograph the bears, with elaborate bait systems.
One bear, known as the Mud Creek Grizzly, had had enough of these damn scientists so
he invaded the research points, smashed up the cameras and the film, disabled the traps
using sticks and rocks and then walked off with the bait.
Scientists only recovered a few photos of the furious bear.