Animal Intelligence

Spring is springing. Or trying to. Meteorological spring begins today in the northern hemisphere, and with it comes warmer weather and, at last, blossoms. But one thing that will be missing in many parts of the United States are honey bees. The news for the honey bee has been poor these past few years, and [...]

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Live Science is reporting that scientists have concluded that fish are capable of human-like logic, at least in certain realms.

Fish have the reasoning capacity of a 4- or 5-year-old child when it comes to figuring out who among their peers is “top dog,” new research shows. Stanford University scientists made the discovery—said to be the [...]

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I had an interesting conversation with my friend Paul last week. We were discussing socially-responsible investing via chat. The conversation eventually turned more philosophical:

5:27:50 PM radiofreewog: I can’t let my ego control my behavior
5:28:05 PM jdroth: ?
5:28:07 PM jdroth: Ego is all there is.
5:28:13 PM jdroth:
5:28:27 PM radiofreewog: hmmm
5:28:42 PM radiofreewog: getting beyond ego [...]

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This doesn’t show intelligence per se, but it is certainly curious behavior. Here’s Nora, the piano-playing cat:

What prompts animals to do things like this? I cannot believe it’s simply random. It’s certainly not instinctual. (I have friends who believe that all animal behavior is purely instinctive — a position I believe is completely indefensible if [...]

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I believe that animals are intelligent. I believe that they have rich emotional lives and complex relationships with other animals (and with humans). I believe that many (most?) animal species possess some form of communication.
Those who espouse this sort of belief are often told, “Don’t make the mistake of anthropomorphizing animal behavior.” That is, [...]

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A couple of people sent me this article from CNN which describes how chimps may have been using tools for thousands of years. It reads in part:

Chimpanzees may have been using stone “hammers” as long as 4,300 years ago, an international research team, led by archaeologist Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary, Canada, said [...]

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Here, via frykitty, is a romantic tale for Valentine’s Day. It’s the tale of two birds — two cockatoos — who fell madly in love.
About eight years ago a wild Australian Sulphur Crested Cockatoo flew into a car and broke its wing. The motorist took it to the Vet in Nerang, Queensland, who had to [...]

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Lynn sent the story of a “real-life Lassie“. A German shepherd is credited with saving a Georgia woman’s life. Here’s Free Republic’s version of the story:

A bruised and battered south Georgia woman credits a wayward German shepherd with rescuing her after her car careened down an embankment, tossing her through the rear window and leaving [...]

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Did you read about the duck that came back to life? He’d been shot by a hunter and stuck in a refrigerator. When the hunter’s wife opened the fridge two days later, the duck raised its head and scared her half to death. This story made the rounds of the “strange news” circuit not long [...]

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allAfrica.com has a story about how chimpanzees use the same plants as traditional human healers to treat physical ailments.

In her five-year study at Kanyawara research station, located on the edge of Kibale, [Sabrina] Krief found that chimps carefully select and consume plants like mululuza, which have little nutritive value. These plants, however, have medical properties [...]

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