Which is the most 'intelligent' animal, in your opinion?

[Externet]

Hi.

Unsure if this is the best place for the subject, but, which animal shows the most 'intelligent' behavior ? (life, strategies, skills, self-sufficiency, activities... at its animal level)

Miguel

[bascule]

Humans, duh... that's a total no-brainer.

 

If you mean the most intelligent non-human animal, then the chimpanzee

[Mokele]

I dunno, I'd go with bonobos, even over humans. Yeah, we've got computers and stuff. But their life in a non-stop orgy.

[Phi for All]

I vote chimp.

But their life in a non-stop orgy.

Uh, does that fall under strategies, skills or activities? I'm updating my resumé.

[Mokele]

All of the above!

[bascule]

But their life in a non-stop orgy.

 

I think it stops when they get slaughtered for bushmeat

[JesuBungle]

Think I'm gonna have to go with lemurs on this one;) Ok, maybe monkies are a little smarter...

[Airmid]

I'm voting for octopus.

Their ability to learn ranks with dogs, or even dolphins. They have lots of tricks on their sleeves to get at food and escape predators. They also have learned to use the right trick for the right situation. They have been shown to use tools. They have been shown to have distinct personalities, and even "moods".

That probably doesn't sound really special, since primates can do all that and more. But the octopus is a solitary animal, and is not being raised by parents. So it hasn't been taught to deal with situations, like chimps or other social animals are. In stead, it seems to have figured out how to do that all by itself. And that's why the octopus gets my vote.

 

Airmid.

[Dr. Dalek]

I dunno, I'd go with bonobos, even over humans. Yeah, we've got computers and stuff. But their life in a non-stop orgy.

Uh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The reason bonoboos are promiscuous and peaceful is because their diet and native habitat allow for very little stress and competition, but isn't it those challenges that, at least partialy, build intelligence? Also bonoboos are primarily herbiverous, isn't meat a brain building food?

 

I want to go for some kind of primate as well, or a dolfin. Canines, and birds are also pretty smart. Certain types of Molusks maybe.

My question would less oriented towards how intelligent the animal is and more towards the ratio of influence that intelligence has on its observed behavior compaired to instinct and emotion.

[Brian]

Well...i'd have to diverge off of the path that most here have taken with mammals. I'd have to say ants are the most "intellegent". Complex social structure, great sense of direction, and extreme survivabilty would suggest that they may be slightly more fitted to different ecosystems than mammals. Ants, since evolving from wasps in the mid-cretaceous, seem adaptable enough to survive mass extinctions...as many other species cannot say. Maybe after we've gone and blow ourselves up and what not, ants may relight the biological fire that is our planet, considering how useful they are to any ecosystem, providing ample symbiosis with other plants and animals. They act as nature's farmer, spreading seeds from area to area. But this goes along with the ecological impact that they have. To not digress too much...ant society has shaped some of the most rudementary computer networking techniques that we use today. The ability for ants to think as a whole, in my honest opinion, makes them almost the smartest animal on Earth...next to humans....maybe.

[ecoli]

the octopus, perhaps.

[Ndi]

I'll go for dogs. Siding with the winner is a winner's strategy in evolution. If we die out and they survive, they'll befriend whoever survives. Smart, too, the smartest of the bunch can get intent and guess voice tone (not training).

 

All respect for quids they have no understanding of human families and infant protection.

[herpguy]

I would say certain species of whales because of their languages. In a way, how complex a language is can determine types of intelligences, and whales' languages seem to be even more complex than English.

[whap2005]

To answer this question you first have to define intelligence. If you look at intelligence from an evolutionarily standpoint (which species has mastered the art of staying alive the longest), then tortoises, birds, and ants are far more intelligent then humans. If we were to nuke ourselves into extinction tomorrow, then in my opinion that would drop us a few zillion notches down the intelligence scale….

[herpguy]

To answer this question you first have to define intelligence. If you look at intelligence from an evolutionarily standpoint (which species has mastered the art of staying alive the longest), then tortoises, birds, and ants are far more intelligent then humans. If we were to nuke ourselves into extinction tomorrow, then in my opinion that would drop us a few zillion notches down the intelligence scale….

 

How you long a species survived can't define intelligence. The animals you listed have other advantages that have nothing to do with brains that would allow them to live for so long.

[Dr. Dalek]

To answer this question you first have to define intelligence. If you look at intelligence from an evolutionarily standpoint (which species has mastered the art of staying alive the longest), then tortoises, birds, and ants are far more intelligent then humans. If we were to nuke ourselves into extinction tomorrow, then in my opinion that would drop us a few zillion notches down the intelligence scale….

. . . . . . . . . . . . . There is a difference between being well adapted and being intelligent.

[Logix]

chimps

[Drilon]

parrots

[Bluenoise]

The giant squid.

 

prove me wrong!! I dare you.

[Glider]

Sperm whales eat them.

 

Apparently they haven't yet worked out how to avoid this, either by hiding or by working cooperatively to warn each other or ward off the predator.

[R.Hillis]

There is a huge area of this that is being missed, i'm largly involved in Zoology at the University of Dundee / Scotland and i find this topic interesting.

 

Animals through a process of evolution display characteristics of intelligence based on circumstances they have had to live through, aswell as physical advantages which help display the intelligence of the animal.

 

Humans are undoubtably more intelligent at using communication than other primates and using there hands to manipulate external objects, which creatures such as dolphins cannot do. A wolf for example can very easily use teamwork to out perform humans and almost all other animals. some forms of social Ants are also a good non-mammilian example. Elephants and most Whales can process memory much more efficiently than any humans on earth. a salmon out-performs every form of navigation instrument known to man. Manufactuing mainframe computers and Terra-formed environments by us due to ignorance to the fact we also bomb for peace and murder each other for pleasure, which no other animal does outside all these primates which we admire.

[Whynot?]

I don't know, it is hard not to weight this question on where each animal lives, but I may go with a Dolphin because they hunt together in ways that are highly intelligent.; such as, herding school fish onto shore then exiting the ocean to eat. They do the same for humans when trained. Their list of abilities are pretty lengthy and amazing.

 

That said, I think the most interesting animal to watch might be the ant. Despite an obvious low ranking in intellect, their ability to set up near-government like colonies and manage their own population by determining sexes etc... Well, us humans don't even do that very well.

[foodchain]

First of all I would have to know what the definition of intelligence is for the comparison. Not every animals brain is “wired” the same overall. Subsequently reality for them might be a bit to drastically different then it is for say a human being. The most intelligent animal in speaking in terms of say compared to us, if that is what the questing is, well surprisingly I came to find out that a type of bird, I believe related a or related to parrots was able to undue a multiple step puzzle(ten steps in sequence I think) in order to obtain food, in which I don’t think the puzzle was an exact copy of previous puzzles but then we go back to the same loop of basically needing to understand organ function to define intelligence for animals.

[Whynot?]

There is a new article that is begging me to change my answer from a dolphin to a chimp.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070222/sc_nm/chimps_hunting_dc

 

In this article, researches have now seen female chimps use spears to hunt Bush Babies.

 

Anyone else care to change their minds?

[AutomagSam]

Im voted for politicians, those little creature are pretty sly, u gotta watch out for them....One even flung poo at me in rage.

 

 

On a serious not id have to go with dolphins.