THE VERDE WORD
One of my passions is observation. I love nothing better that sitting watching the ocean, rolling hills or the depth of the sky at night. It is of constant fascination to me. I am continually fascinated at the myriad of living things there are on our planet and beyond.
Long gone are the days when we thought animals were dumb creatures totally devoid of all intelligent thought and feelings. Thank heavens that science has proved this otherwise.
All animals are extremely intelligent however this intelligence can't be measured the same way as human intelligence is measured. This is because all animals have different brains.
I contend that many animals are as intelligent as the human animal and it is human ego that may fail to see this. Do animals have egos? Sure they do, but it would be interesting to know if they thought they were more intelligent than humans.
What is animal intelligence. Are animals actually intelligent at all or do they simply react according to a response driven by the need for food, shelter and reproduction?
THE OCTOPUS
Scientific research has revealed that the brain of an octopus has similarities with intelligent mammals. An octopus brain is in the head, split into two halves and divided into lobes for various specialisations. The distance between neurons is short and enables information to be processed faster. In comparison, a mollusk only have chains of nerve knots called ganglia. Following, this means that information process is slower in a mollusk than an octopus.
Interestingly, there is evidence that octopus are able to recognise the difference between themselves and others. Current and recent research is trying to establish if one octopus can identify emotions in another octopus. On a final note on the octopus, their eyes are large like humans and they have the most advanced brain of any invertebrate.
Dr David Suzuki and his television program The Nature of Things and other film documented evidence based research has revealed that octopus are intelligent.
A very young octopus was placed in a glass tank next to another glass tank holding an adult octopus. The baby octopus was watching the adult octopus. A glass jar with a crab inside was placed in the adult tank. The adult moved to the crab jar and using his tentacles unscrewed the jar and ate the crab.
The glass jar with another crab was placed in the baby octopus's tank. The baby octopus copied the adult octopus and opened the jar in the same way.
Note: The baby octopus was new from the ocean and had never been in a tank nor ever seen a glass jar opened.
THE POLAR BEAR
The documentary was filmed over a year following the physical and maternalistic journey of a polar bear and her cubs. The film recorded the most astonishing and highly intelligent thing I have ever seen.
The bear, whilst hunting for food was on an ice floe. A seal was on another piece of ice. The bear knew she has to be very quiet leaving her ice otherwise the seal would hear her.
Then, we observed the most incredible behaviour!
To avoid making any splashing noise while sneaking up on the seal she turned her body around and backwards, very slowly, rear feet first, gently easing her belly,slid off the ice floe into the water. Pure intelligence. Would you think of doing that?
THE SNAKE - PYTHON
There is an island in a natural waterway in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney, Australia. The waterway is called Pittwater. Most of this area is national park and there is much flora and fauna, including a type of snake called a python. They are not poisonous. They eat small animals such as marsupials.
One day a woman ran out of her house because a well known python (named Syphon) who had been living next to the house and the bbq for many years had a small dog in his mouth. The woman grabbed a stick, hit, kicked and stamped on the snake until Syphon released the dog. The next day as the woman was walking past the snake, he lunged at her and bit her on the ankle.
So, I have three questions:
Was Syphon afraid he was going to be attacked by her again?
Was Syphon gaining retribution and getting back at her for not letting him have the dog?
Are snakes and other animals able to distinguish one human from another?
Yes, this indicates intelligence in snakes.
DOLPHINS AND WHALES
As you know they have a playful spirit but they also have a range of emotions as well.
Dolphins and whales, like many other mammals also have a strong sense of family and relationships.
If a fellow pod member is in distressed, other pod members appear stressed and swim erratically.
They have a hard time accepting death and will often stay with a deceased infant or pod member for days if not a week. They can visually be seen mourning. They stay with the deceased whilst nudging and caressing them and appear very reluctant to 'let them go'. The body behaviour is similar to humans.
BIRDS - MAGPIE
What about the Magpie and other similiar birds? Besides other things, magpies enjoy eating nuts. Whilst eating lunch on a pation at university, I saw a magpie with a nut in it's beak trying to break the shell by continually hitting it on the ground. When that did not work the magpie went to a large rock and used the seemingly harder rock to break the nut shell.
That takes intelligence.
COWS
I saw a television news story about an English cow. The farmer was mystified how every afternoon he would bolt all his cattle in the barn for the evening and yet, in the morning, all the cattle were in the farm yard. He investigated everything. Other people not closing the barn properly, leaving it open, letting the cattle out early, or even a faulty bolt. In the end, the farmer mounted CCTV cameras both inside and outside the barn. What revealed itself was wonderful!
There was one cow who was the culprit. She had taught herself how to put her tongue through the gap in the bars, loop her tongue around the bolt, pull it back and push the door open! Now, you try and tell me animals are not intelligent!
DOGS
Yes, we all know that our cats and dogs are smart. But even better, Gregory Berns at Emory University in the USA conducted research to determine how dogs' brains work. Using MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), he proved that dogs experiecne emotions in a way that is comparable with humans.
Berns concluded that 'Dogs are people too' but also have: 'The ability to experience positive emotions, like love and attchment, would meand that dogs have a level of sentience comparable to that of a human child...' 'And this ability suggests a rethinking of how we treat dogs.'
The related news article is available from the New York Times http://www.mnn.com/family/pets/stories/dogs-have-capacity-for-emotion-study-finds
Copywrite Emory University
I think this pretty much proves that animals are much smarter than many folks think.
VERDE
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