• Question: is there any animal that is smarter than humans

    Asked by mrhicks to Angus, Christian, Hannah, Laura, Simon on 21 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Simon Holyoake

      Simon Holyoake answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      that’s a very good question, the general answer is no, although I think whales are pretty smart, after all, they spend their whole lives swimming around eating seafood which sounds like they have the right idea!

      in all seriousness no animals are more intelligent than humans, there are some animals who are very clever (chimps and other apes are very clever, so are dolphins, dogs and pigs)

      one of the tests used for the intelligence of an animal is whether it can recognise itself in a mirror, this shows that an animal is self-aware which is a very important concept in intelligence

      great question!

    • Photo: Angus Ferraro

      Angus Ferraro answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Simon’s listed some other pretty clever animals, but they’re not as clever as humans. Clever animals are ones that can solve problems innovatively. For example, crows are very intelligent. The New Caledonian Crows is especially clever. One of them has been shown bending a piece of wire to use as a hook to pull a basket of food out of a tube. Very clever indeed!

    • Photo: Laura Roberts Artal

      Laura Roberts Artal answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      I agree with Angus and Simon. There are lots of very intelligent animals, but humans are very smart.

      Did you know that octupuses are really clever? They have great problem solving skills and so that makes them really difficult to keep as pets, because they work out how to escape aquariums.

    • Photo: Christian Maerz

      Christian Maerz answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      Depends on how you define smart. When it comes to brain size and the ability to solve complex problems and to be self-conscious and all these things, humans are top.

      But then, this smartness has so far only resulted in a lot of bad things for the Earth, like pollution, war, extinction of plants and animals, global warming… In this sense, humans are, despite their phenomenal brain, pretty stupid creatures!

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