Have you ever wondered if animals are smarter than humans give them credit for?
When it comes to animals, a lot of people underestimate them since they’re just “dumb”. However, animals are smart—even smarter than most humans give them credit for! There are a lot of animals on Earth, and it is a bit conceited of us humans to believe that we are the only intelligent form of life on the planet. In the end, those who do not realize that animals are smart can actually not be as smart as the animals they look down upon!
The scientific community keeps researching animals and how their intellect shows, and in recent decades we have been shown that animals are even smarter than we ever thought they were! Sure, there are some animals that everyone agrees are smart (the likes of dolphins, pigs, and rats, just to name a few), but there are many more that are brilliant that we are turning a blind eye to!
To find out which animals are smarter than we have given them credit for, keep reading!
Could you name all these smart animals? Let us know in the comments below!
Ravens
Are you ready to be surprised? Ravens are some of the smartest birds around us, and this is also true when it comes to many other birds in the corvid family, such as crows. These birds have been known to be clever and crafty, but they are also one of the animals that are smarter than people believe! This is because, while farmers and biologists knew that ravens exhibited some very intelligent traits, there was not a lot of research done into how smart they actually are.
That was all put aside back in 2020 when researchers got together and decided to truly measure how smart ravens were and ended up being surprised. The birds were given a series of tests that have also been used to determine how smart other animals are, such as fog, apes, and monkeys, but these tests were also used on children!
The results showed that a raven that was only four months old was on par when it came to intellect with all of the others who were given the tests, as they could master most of the tasks assigned to them quite easily! The Scientific Report also noted that ravens have ended up being as smart as most primates and human toddlers who have taken similar tests, so indeed, ravens are smarter than anyone else thought!
Crocodiles
If we asked you to name some of the animals that are smart, your mind would probably not have gotten all the way to crocodiles! However, research and data would prove you wrong, as indeed, these animals are smarter than most others. Crocodiles are indeed some of the world’s most dangerous predators, and given the fact that they are mostly nocturnal and that they love to spend most of their time in murky swamps, it has been hard for scientists to observe them, or their relatives, the alligator, too extensively!
Despite this, in the last couple of years, crocodiles have been looked at more carefully, and the results have been amazing. Everyone knows that crocodiles are excellent hunters, with the second-strongest biting power in the animal kingdom. However, the way in which crocodiles hunt is exceptional, as they often do this in groups and are very organized when they do it.
Not only do they make sure to surround and lure their prey closer to the group, but they also ambush them to make sure they have the upper hand. Studies made in 2014 showed that crocodile groups have such an advanced hunting method that they each have their own roles in the pack, based on abilities and size, so that while they may appear uncoordinated to the naked eye, the crocodiles are actually extremely sophisticated in both their hunting method, assumption of skill, and type of intelligence!
And this fact right here is what makes crocodiles one of the smarter animals that shock people!
Octopuses
Continuing our streak with the water animals, we have to go deeper than the swamps and bayous and go deep inside the ocean, where we will find another animal that is smarter than people believe. And while we have known that the octopus is one of the smartest animals around, haven’t we underestimated them a little bit?
The reason why the octopus is so intelligent lies in the fact that they actually have more than one brain: they have a central “headquarter” brain like humans do, inside their head, but they also have multiple “mini-brains” that are located in their tentacles, making the octopus the only animal with nine brains!
What these brains achieve is giving each tentacle the ability to not only move on its own accord but also touch and even taste independently from all the other tentacles! As an invertebrate, the octopus proves time and time again that it should not be underestimated, as it is smarter than people would give it credit for.
Octopuses are known in the research world to be able to not only figure out puzzles, labyrinths, and other predicaments but also problem-solve and use tools! Researchers found out in 2009 that a lot of veiny octopuses find and store coconut shells to use as armor in dire moments to protect themselves.
If you are curious about the way in which the mind of an octopus works, we recommend you read this book, which you can get on Amazon for only $11.99 on sale!
Elephants
Do you remember the phrase “an elephant never forgets”? It is not just an anecdotal saying or something said like that, as elephants are smart animals and they can remember things really well. One of the most poignant examples of their memory is the elephants who reunited after years and were ecstatic when they met one another. The pair of old elephants met at an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, and the sanctuary’s founder remembers to this day how euphoric and happy the two elephants were.
The two female elephants, Jenny and Shirley, have known each other since they met at a circus 23 years ago. Some humans cannot remember people after that much time, but elephants proved to be smarter in this category. What’s more, since their memory is so good, they are also known to keep grudges, and if you cross them, expect to have them come back with a vengeance.
What’s more, elephants are known to be extremely smart problem solvers, which has also been observed in one elephant that has used trial and error when using the objects around him to be able to reach food that was out of his reach without the tools!
Indeed, humans are not the only ones who can use tools to get what they want!
Bees
We’ll end our smart animals list with an insect that you have seen around a lot lately. Not only are bees really important for the Earth’s ecosystems, and they are some of the hardest workers in the animal kingdom, but they are also some of the smartest animals out there.
What a lot of people do not know is that bees are sentient; they can feel emotions just like humans do, and they are also capable of imagining abstract ideas. One of the biggest bee researchers and ecologists, Lars Chittka, has studied female worker bees for years and even conducted some experiments to see just how smart these insects are.
As a result, Lars has managed, after a number of experiments, to also notice some “genius” bees who have been able to learn the task given to them faster and then go on to teach the rest of the colony to do the same task. Bees can also identify objects in the dark since they can imagine what they look like despite not being able to see them, and they have also responded accordingly to positive and negative stimuli.
Indeed, bees are some of the smartest animals out there!
You may not have known all these amazing facts about animals and how they are so intelligent. However, you may remember some random school facts, and you may be surprised when we tell you that they are no longer true! To find out what “universal” facts we learned back in school have been debunked by scientists and researchers, read this article here!
