Animal Intelligence

Animal Intelligence

Animals are smarter than people think they are. As animal studies keep on increasing, we find out that some animals are close to our level of thinking. Animals such as chimps, parrots, elephants, dolphins and monkeys have been studied and proved to us that they too have a good level of intelligence. Self recognition, social skills, language skills and the use of tools are all signs that scientist use to prove that these animals have a good capacity of smarts in their brain.

Many people may think that only humans have the ability to recognize themselves or to be recognized. But the study of two animals has turned that statement to something new. In one study, an elephant was looking at its own appearance and saw some dirt on its face, and with its trunk it tried to take the smudges off its face. (Braden) Another study was done on bottlenose dolphins; to show that they too, have self recognition .Researchers took markers and started to draw on them. Some dolphins had black marks and some did not acquire any marks, but they all felt something touch their body and were eager to see themselves in the mirror. ( DeSeve) To have self recognition shows intelligence. The studies done on these animals show that they are aware of themselves and to be conscious of your self shows a great amount of intelligence.

The social skills of animals are very similar to human social skills. Two studies were conducted on chimps to see if they had emotional feelings. The first study that was held was that chimps saw two types of videos a negative and a positive. By watching other chimps on the screen they had to match the right facial expression with the scene they were watching. So if the video was negative a negative expression would match the video, but if the video was positive a positive expression would be matched with that type of video. The chimps put most of the scenes in the right group, which states that they had an idea of what they were watching. The second study was measuring the temperature in the brain of a chimp when they were watching both happy and aggressive scenes. When the temperature was being checked, it changed the exact same way it would for a human. (DeSeve) Grief and mourning is another type of social skill, which deals with emotions. Joyce Poole, an expert on elephants, believes that elephants know what life is, so when someone dies they grieve for that elephant. When an elephant dies in a certain area, the fellow components of that elephants stop for a moment to remember and show respect to the elephant they have lost. Remembrance of a lost in a herd has to deal with memory in the brain, which also is another kind of intelligence.