Animal Intelligence

The 23 April 2007 edition of Newsweek featured an article by Sharon Begley entitled “Can animals and robots be self-aware?“. She writes: “To know what you know is [the mark] of consciousness, the last stand for human exceptionalism. Now, however, this claim is on the rocks as both animals and machines show signs that they [...]

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On strong recommendations from friends, my wife and I have been watching Planet Earth, the BBC nature documentary recently broadcast on The Discovery Channel. The cinematography is gorgeous, and I love the insights into animal behavior.
I can’t give the project unequivocal praise, though. The writing is sometimes uneven, and some episodes lack any real [...]

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Kruger National Park is the largest game reserve in South Africa. It lies nestled in the northeast corner of the country, next to Mozambique and close to Zimbabwe. The reserve is home to a variety of flora and fauna.
YouTube user Jason275 has posted footage captured by a group on safari inside the park. Beside a [...]

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I’m still here, and I do have more animal intelligence stories on deck. Unfortunately, this blog takes third place among my projects, so sometimes it languishes while I write about personal finance or about my daily life.
Just to tide you over, here’s a short video of “jellyfish all around”.

Naokiinoue, who posted this to YouTube, [...]

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Here’s another in a long line of videos where I’m unsure what I’m seeing. The person who posted this at YouTube wrote, “A tortoise in our garden defends it’s territory against invading cats.”

Is the tortoise playing? Is it angry? (I lean toward the latter.) Are the cats hurting it when they respond? It doesn’t look [...]

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Though it’s not about animal intelligence, I promised some friends that I’d share the story of the hermaphroditic six-legged calf born last week in Litchfield, Nebraska. According to the Kearney (Neb.) Hub:

“He’s a real freak,” Brian Slocum of Litchfield said, staring at what stood before him. At about 1 p.m. Sunday, one of his [...]

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I am not a vegetarian. I love meat. I do not consider myself an animal rights activist. I’m just a guy who thinks that animals are far more intelligent than most people believe. In fact, I believe that some animals — dolphins, elephants, chimpanzees — have complex societies and rich emotional lives. They have language. [...]

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Sally at Veggie Revolution has posted an interesting piece summarizing an article from Science News. Researchers have observed certain dolphins making use of tools. Sally writes:

Not too long ago, scientists used to believe that “tool use” was one of the characteristics that set humans apart from all other animals.
We now know that animals do use [...]

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Via AV Geeks, here’s the story of Squeak the squirrel, an educational film from 1957.

Shows how a gold-mantled ground squirrel at Crater Lake National Park has learned to solve problems connected with getting food. Illustrates how an animal can learn to find food that is hidden from view or out of reach.
This is [...]

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Here’s an MSNBC article from 04 April 2007 about two swans released on an ape preserve in Iowa. The apes were pleased to see the birds, and will even get a chance to name them.

The eight bonobos at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa howled Tuesday as they watched two trumpeter swans dip into a [...]

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