There is no doubt that the most intelligent creature in nature is a human being. But are there other animals with a relatively high IQ? The answer is yes! There is intelligence in animals.
As valuable as intelligence is to humans, it is far more valuable to animals. High intelligence for animals is often the difference between being a hunter and being hunted.
There are several species of intelligent animals, but scientists find it difficult to rate one animal more intelligently than the other. In this article, we chose to focus on five highly intelligent animals.
Finally, we will reveal which animal has the highest intelligence.
Dogs:
The dog is man’s best friend and one of the smartest land animals. The breeds that are considered intelligent are German Shepherds and Poodles. But the dog that is considered the most intelligent is the Border Collie (the dog in the picture).
The Border Collie is known for his sheep herding skills and ability to concentrate for long periods. You can easily teach them to perform tricks that will take other dogs days or even weeks to learn.
In general, all dogs can identify different moods in their owners according to the tone of their speech or behavior.
One example of a dog’s intelligence is a famous story about a German Shepherd dog. The dog led police to a house that burned down after police were unable to find out on their own where it was. The dog ran to call for help, spotted a police car on nearby streets, and led them so they could take care of it.
Octopuses:
Octopuse have intelligence at a level very close to that of a dog! Octopuses are known for their camouflage mechanisms to evade predators.
The Oscar-winning documentary "My Octopuse Teacher" is a fascinating film from 2020, in which it is possible to understand how intelligent the octopuses are. The film describes the behavior of octopuses in their natural environment.
The film shows their high intelligence, how curious they are, and the trust and closeness that can be created with them.
Crows:
Crows have a very high level of reasoning ability. Recent studies show that crows use logic to solve problems and that some of their abilities are similar to those of apes.
Crows also know how to use tools, for example, twigs or sticks, to gather food from narrow places.
Another example: in order to crack closed nuts, crows take nuts to the road and wait for a car to run over and smash them.
In addition, crows are also known for their excellent memory and their ability to identify people by their facial features.
Dolphins:
The dolphin is considered one of the most intelligent animals in nature. Their brains are the largest of the animals of their size. Dolphins have very high learning abilities.
Scientists have found that they can develop hunting methods that emphasize teamwork, which increases the chance of success in hunting.
The communication between the dolphins is astonishing. They communicate with each other with knocks and whistles and a natural sonar system that allows them incredible collaboration ability. Thanks to their high intelligence, dolphins are very easy to tame.
The U.S. military, for example, has trained dolphins to place naval mines and spy equipment against enemy ships.
Chimpanzees:
Apes are in another league when it comes to intelligence. Chimpanzees and orangutans can create and use tools, hunt collectively, solve complex problems, and learn sign language to communicate with humans.
The most amazing feature of the chimpanzee is its ability to use symbols and combine them in sequence to convey a complex idea.
It is important to note that the orangutan is a very smart ape, but the prevailing opinion is that the chimpanzee is more intelligent than him.
So which animal has the highest IQ?
The animal with the highest IQ is the chimpanzee.
Japanese researchers have created a type of IQ test that examines a chimpanzee versus a human. The chimpanzee was presented with a touch screen, on which the digits 1 to 9 were displayed in an unordered manner. The chimpanzee should press the digits in ascending order from 1 to 9. If he answers correctly, he gets a peanut.
Having managed to do so, came the most interesting part. The scientists performed the same experiment but a more complex one. The chimpanzee sees a flash of digits on the screen for a second — then they are covered.
This time, the chimpanzee should remember the order in which they were presented and click on the 9 digits one after the other in ascending order.
The chimpanzee has managed to do this many times with ease. And this is not a special chimpanzee; any chimpanzee can do that. In contrast, only a very small percentage of people can perform such a task at such a high success rate.
Conclusion
In nature, you can find animals that show surprisingly high intelligence. Although science regularly studies animal behavior, no formula has yet been found that would rank the animals' IQ on an agreed-upon scale. Therefore, there is no unanimous agreement among the researchers regarding the ranking of the animals presented.
Other animals can fit into our list and are known for impressive cognitive abilities. Some of these animals are pigs, parrots, elephants and sharks, and whales.
Despite man's vast knowledge of nature and animals, we have much more to learn about them.
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