Top-10 most Intelligent Animals
Top-10 most Intelligent Animals
There are a lot of beautiful animals on our planet, and some of them demonstrate extraordinary abilities. Meanwhile, scientists and experts have long been trying to determine which animal is the smartest. Here is the top of 10 most intelligent animals on Earth, according to Animal Planet.
10th place: Rats
Fur-less rats are now being bred in laboratories and in the pet population. Noteworthy, the rat is the first animal on the Chinese Zodiac.
In Western culture, the connotation with rat is often negative as it is used to insult a person. It is also considered as an unclean animal that steals food and spread disease. However, some people have kept them as pets too and found them to be clean, intelligent and disciplined creatures.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records the longest lived domestic rat died at seven years and four months of age (which far exceeds the 2-3 year expected lifespan.) The Bubonic Plague was not caused by rats but instead was caused by infected fleas that jumped off dead rats onto humans. A rat’s teeth are always yellow upon maturity (a rodent characteristic) and don’t stop growing until the animal’s death.
The first albino rats to be bred in captivity were born to a single albino rat captured in a graveyard in England by Queen Victoria’s royal rat catcher Jack Black. Fancy rats are a domestic variety of Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) who are not originally from Norway but probably first came from Asia. Some rat species can grow to enormous sizes like the Gambian Pouch Rat whose largest specimens can reach around eight pounds.
Gambian Pouch Rats have been trained to sniff out mines in war torn countries – due to their light weight they are far less likely to explode the mines then sniffer dogs are. The ancient Romans didn’t distinguish rats and mice but instead called then Rattus Major (big rat) and Rattus Minor (little rat.)
Rats use their tail to control their body temperature because they cannot sweat. A rat has a sharp memory and always remembers the navigation routes to the places. It can go longer without water than camel and can also survive unhurt after falling from 15 meters. A rat is a curious and shy animal and would prefer to flee away sensing a danger rather than confronting it.
9th place: Octopus
An octopus species known as the mimic octopus can actually impersonate other creatures. Female blanket octopuses are 40,000 times heavier and 100 times larger than the male blanket octopuses. Females grow about 6.6 feet in length while males grow 0.9 inches. Also, the males are there only to mate, after which they die.
All octopuses have three hearts. They have no bones and will not be able to maintain their shape out of water. The color of their blood is blue. They have a very good eyesight but can not hear.
All octopuses can change their color. Sometimes octopuses may shed an arm to escape a predator. When threatened or provoked, the blue-ringed octopus will quickly change its color to bright yellow with blue rings on it.
Their main predators are sharks, dolphins and conger eels, while they commonly prey upon crabs and mollusks.
8th place: Pigeon
During the First World War a pigeon named Cher Ami (Dear friend) saved the lives of many French soldiers by carrying a message across enemy lines in the heat of battle.
There are as many as 28 pigeon color types. Pigeons can fly up to 40 or 50 miles per hour and may fly as far as 600 miles a day. Both male and female parent pigeons produce a special substance called “pigeon milk,” which they feed to their hatchlings during their first week of life. Pigeons pair for life.
All domestic pigeons have one common ancestor, which is the Rock Dove Pigeon. Pigeons are known to survive for almost 10-15 years in their natural habitats. The longest recorded life-span of a pigeon was around 33 years! It has been long since regarded as a symbol of life and is considered to be a religious symbol.
7th place: Squirrel
A squirrel’s brain is almost the size of a walnut. A male squirrel makes a sneezing sound when ready to mate. The mating season for them mostly begins in the late winters where they are most active.
Squirrels are so fast that they can run at the speed of 20 miles per hour. A squirrel stands motionless on two feet when it senses danger. The tail helps the squirrel to balance its body while jumping.
They have very sharp nails with which they take a good grip on the trees. Squirrels have such sharp teeth that they can break the hard shells of nuts, and also chew the electric wires. They sharpen their teeth by chewing branches of trees.
Squirrels are mostly vegetarian but sometimes they do eat small insects, small birds or bird eggs. They also love seeds, tree buds, berries, etc. Their method of food storage is interesting. They collect nuts and bury them in the soil as a provision for winters and look for them when they need food the most. Squirrels remember where they have buried these nuts as their memory increases by 15% in the fall.
6th place: Pigs
Amongst the most common animals, found almost everywhere in the world, are pigs. Pigs do not prefer to sit in mud. In fact, they prefer cleanliness much more than other animals. They use the mud only as a coolant in summers, that too out of necessity. Mud also provides the pigs protection against flies and parasites, apart from being used as a form of sunscreen, which protects their skin from sunburn. A female pig is called a sow, while the male is called boar. The baby of a pig is called piglet.
Pigs have such a well developed sense of smell that they can easily find things underground. Many experts consider pigs to be more trainable than dogs or cats. The largest pig till date was a Poland-China hog, named ‘Big Bill’. It weighed 2,552 lbs and had a height of 5 feet and a length of 9 feet.
The largest litter of piglets ever born included 37 piglets, out of which 36 were born alive and 33 survived. A full grown pig can drink up to 14 gallons of water a day.
5th place: Crows
Crows are usually black in color all over, but some species are not totally black and are found with white, gray or brown coloring around the neck or the beak. Crows are considered to be very intelligent creatures and have existed since a long time due to their ability to adapt to changing situations.
Crows are migratory birds and assemble in huge groups in order to migrate during fall and winters, since they cannot stand harsh climate. A bunch of crows is called as ‘murder’!
They are not restricted to a particular habitat and can easily breed and survive in a variety of habitats, which includes mountains, woodlands, plains, farms, fields as well as modern urban areas.
They are known to be both beneficial as well as a nuisance for farmers. Though they eat up a number of pests that may destroy crops like cutworms, wireworms, grasshoppers, etc. they are also known to destroy a large number of crops by pecking on them, their favorite being corn!
4th place: The Elephant
According to evolutionary history, the mammoth (an extinct elephant species) is more closely related to Asian elephant species. Just like an individual is left or right-handed, an elephant may be either right-tusked or left-tusked, based on its preference. The extra long second upper incisor or tusk is one of the hereditary characters in elephants. Tusks are mainly used as weapons.
For elephants, the speed of walking averages about 4 mph (miles per hour). And these mammals have the ability to swim for longer distances. An angry elephant twirls its trunk, and blows dirt in the air. Also, rapid waiving of the ears indicates an angry state.
Elephants, despite their size, can walk smoothly and silently. This is because of the soft padding or cushion that covers the sole of their feet.
Elephants have been known to die of broken hearts if a mate dies. They refuse to eat and will lay down, shedding tears until they starve to death. They refuse all human help.
Scientists are beginning to believe that animals do have emotions and that their feelings may be more intense and unfiltered than our own. Emotion rises from the old brain, the limbic system, which birds and reptiles as well as dogs, humans, and other mammals share. Humans have additional brain structures and symbolic language to process our feelings and a complex array of psychological defense mechanisms that allay or soften the impact of our emotions. We repress, deny, subjugate, dissociate, and use all kinds of conscious and unconscious machinations to separate ourselves from our feelings, but animals have no such recourse, so their emotions are likely to be raw and strong. In fact, this may be one of the reasons we find them so attractive: they wear their hearts on their sleeves, so to speak.
People seem to deny the existence of animal emotions so that they can continue to justify inhumane treatment and exploitation and avoid the fact that our actions have a deep emotional impact on our fellow beings.
3rd place: Orangutans
Orangutan is one of the four great apes: in the world, the other three being gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. At the same time, it is the only ape that is found in Asia, all the other three are from Africa. In the earlier times, people thought an orangutan to be a person hiding in the trees, trying to avoid having to go to work or become a slave.
Orangutan is the only ape that is strictly arboreal. At the same time, it is the largest tree-living mammal in the world.
An orangutan baby has the longest childhood dependence on its mother in the world, averaging at six years. Orangutan females give birth only about once every 8 years, the longest time between births of any mammal on earth.
As a male orangutan gets older, its face starts developing cheek pads and the throat starts getting a pouch. Orangutans share almost 97 percent of the human DNA.
2nd place: Dolphins
Dolphins cannot go into a full deep sleep, because then they would suffocate. Some kinds of dolphins can hold their breath for 30 minutes. The dolphin can live to be 30 years old.
Many dolphins are playful and acrobatic by nature, and one particular type of dolphin, the spinner dolphin, has its own special trick. Its name comes from the spinner’s ability to jump clear of the water and spin on a longitudinal axis (from head to tail) up to four times before diving back into the water. This gravity-defying display may be a form of communication — or it might just be fun. The Orca or killer whale is the largest species of dolphins.
Dolphins don’t make any noises with their mouth. They don’t even have vocal cords. All sounds come through the dolphin’s blowhole! The echolocation abilities of dolphins are better than any human made sonar system. US navy uses dolphins as their helpers in locating lost divers. Dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror!!
The scientific name of the dolphin family are “delphinidae”.
The dolphins give birth to their young ones by rotating faster in the water. The young ones come out with their tails first to ensure that they’re not drowned.
Dolphin, in Greek means ‘fish with a womb’. The weight of a dolphin’s brain is nearly 1700-1800 grams and of humans is about 1200 grams!!
1st place: Chimpanzee
One major difference that distinguishes chimpanzees from monkeys is that the former does not have a tail. A female chimpanzee can give birth at any time of year. However, she gives birth every 3-4 years.
Facts about Chimpanzee:
– Vulnerable to many human diseases, like measles, influenza, hepatitis B, ringworm and cold sores.
– Have the knowledge of working with tools.
– Live in social communities of several dozen animals, known as troops. Hierarchies are formed by the adult males of a community, who are led by an Alpha Male. Chimpanzees share more than 98 percent of the human DNA.
– Use large sticks and branches as clubs or even throw them at enemies, just like humans. Chimps touch each other a lot and may even kiss when they meet. They have also been seen holding hands and grooming each other. It has been noticed by scientists that chimps use medicinal plants to treat themselves for illness and injury.
Top-10 most Intelligent Animals
animal.discovery.com