Think humans are smarter than animals? Think again! Some creatures have SUPERIOR brains to us - we just don't understand them

Evolutionary biologists believe that animals can possess cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings

Scientists from the University of Adelaide said many animals just possess different abilities that are misunderstood by humans

They cited gibbons’ abilities to make varied sounds with different meanings as proof of this intelligence

Humans have long believed that they are smarter than other animals, but an increasing body of scientific evidence suggests that, as a species, we are just being arrogant.



Evolutionary biologists claim that in some cases animals have superior brains to us and that many of their abilities are merely misunderstood by humans.

They believe that creatures ranging from crows to koalas reveal this intelligence is widespread in the animal kingdom.



Gibbons, for example, can produce 20 varied sounds with clearly different meanings that allow them to communicate across tropical forest canopy

THE GENIUS OF ANIMALS

Levels of perception in animals have been studied in many species and these processes can go beyond those found in humans, such as echolocation in bats and dolphins, motion detection by skin receptors in fish and the ability to see ultraviolet light in birds.

Research into attention and expectation indicates that birds, mammals and reptiles are similar to humans. In one experiment a common pigeon could distinguish between a light and noise to anticipate a treat.

Another experiment found that birds tend to catch the same type of insect repeatedly because prey selection is caused by an attentional bias that improves detection of one type of insect while suppressing detection of others.

Different types of memory have been detected in animals and scientists have explored the spatial memory of scatter-hoarder animals such as certain jays, tits and squirrels, whose ecological niches require them to remember the locations of thousands of caches, often following radical changes in the environment. Tool use has been reported many times in both wild and captive primates, particularly the great apes.

The use of tools by primates is varied and includes hunting fish, collecting honey, processing food such as nuts, collecting water, weapons and shelter.

Research in 2007 shows that chimpanzees in the Fongoli savannah sharpen sticks to use as spears when hunting, considered the first evidence of systematic use of weapons in a species other than humans. Several species of birds including parrots and owls have been recorded as using tools in the wild. One species examined extensively under laboratory conditions is the New Caledonian crow.

One individual called Betty spontaneously made a wire tool to solve a novel problem in the laboratory. It is clear that animals are capable of solving a range of problems that are argued to involve abstract reasoning. Research has shown that the performances of Wolfgang Köhler's chimpanzees, who could achieve spontaneous solutions to problems without training, were by no means unique to that species and that apparently similar behaviour can be found in animals usually thought of as much less intelligent, if appropriate training is given.

For example, the gibbon's ability to make varied sounds with different meanings, the koala's sophisticated method of marking its environment and domestic pets’ abilities to control humans are cited as evidence for this intelligence.

‘For millennia, all kinds of authorities from religion to scholars have been repeating the same idea ad nauseam, that humans are exceptional by virtue that they are the smartest in the animal kingdom,’ said Dr Arthur Saniotis, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide’s School of Medical Sciences.



‘However, science tells us that animals can have cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings,’ he said.



The belief that humans have superior intelligence harks back to the Agricultural Revolution some 10,000 years ago when people began producing cereals and domesticating animals.



According to the scientists, this gained momentum with the development of organised religion, which viewed human beings as the top species in creation.



‘The belief of human cognitive superiority became entrenched in human philosophy and sciences. Even Aristotle - probably the most influential of all thinkers - argued that humans were superior to other animals due to our exclusive ability to reason,’ Dr Saniotis said.



Maciej Henneberg, a professor of anthropological and comparative anatomy from the university, believes animals often possess different abilities that are misunderstood by humans.

‘The fact that they may not understand us, while we do not understand them, does not mean our “intelligences” are at different levels, they are just of different kinds.



‘When a foreigner tries to communicate with us using an imperfect, broken, version of our language, our impression is that they are not very intelligent. But the reality is quite different,’ Professor Henneberg said.



The biologists said that animals offer different kinds of intelligences, such as social and kinaesthetic, which have been underrated due to humans' fixation on language and technology.



Gibbons, for example, can produce 20 varied sounds with clearly different meanings that allow them to communicate across tropical forest canopy.



‘The fact that they do not build houses is irrelevant to the gibbons,’ said Professor Henneberg.

A different kind of intelligence: Koalas, have special pectoral glands for scent marking their environment in a complex way but humans cannot gauge the complexity of messages contained in olfactory markings, which may be as rich in information as the visual world,the scientists said

‘Many quadrupeds leave complex olfactory marks in their environment, and some, like koalas, have special pectoral glands for scent marking.

‘Humans, with their limited sense of smell, can't even gauge the complexity of messages contained in olfactory markings, which may be as rich in information as the visual world,' he said.

An experiment by the University of Cambridge has proved that members of the crow family, known as corvids, aren’t just among the cleverest birds, they are smarter than most mammals and can perform tasks that three and four-year-old children have difficulty with.

Scientists said that, while having very different brain structures, both crows and primates use a combination of mental tools, including imagination and the anticipation of possible future events, to solve similar problems.



Other experiments involving the same family of birds found that Caledonian crows can use up to three tools in sequence to obtain food, which the University of Oxford’s Behavioural Ecology Research Group said is the first demonstration of spontaneous sequential tool use in a species other than humans.

A study also found that rooks can use stones to raise the level of water in a vessel in order to bring a floating worm into reach.



Urban-living carrion crows have been witnessed learning to use road traffic for cracking nuts.



They wait patiently at crossings while keeping watch on the traffic lights, so that when the traffic stops they can retrieve a nut that they have dropped earlier and has been crushed by cars.



Professor Henneberg believes that domestic pets also give us close insight into mental abilities of mammals and birds.



A previous experiment by the University of Cambridge has proved that members of the crow family, known as corvids, aren't just among the cleverest birds, they are smarter than most mammals and can perform tasks that three and four-year-old children have difficulty with

‘They can even communicate to us their demands and make us do things they want. The animal world is much more complex than we give it credit for,’ he added.



Thanks to scientific research, it is now known that elephants grieve and conservationist Damian Aspinall said apes feel joy, love and sadness and should be given human rights.



‘When you get to know them, you start to understand that they each have their own personalities. You realise how much apes and humans share. They love each other as we do. They feel complex emotions such as loyalty and jealousy,’ he said.

