Animal Intelligence

In August, the Guardian Unlimited reported on an elephant love story. It’s a short piece, so I’ll quote it in its entirety:

It’s a very traditional love story — just on a bigger scale than usual. A tame female elephant has fled an Indian circus after eloping with a wild bull elephant that broke open a [...]

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Newsweek has an awesome slideshow profiling the Rhesus monkey infestation in northern India. There are ten photographs with brief captions describing the ways in which these creatures interact with the humans around them. Here’s the full text of the introduction by Rajesh Kumar Singh:

The Oct. 20 death of Delhi Deputy Mayor S. Bajwa, who died [...]

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I’ve read many reports of animals who love alcohol just as much as humans do. But until now, I never knew that their wild parties could lead to drunken brawls. The West Australian has a story about a herd of elephants that had a little too much beer and then went on a rampage. Here’s [...]

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Patrick sent me the story of Peanut the parrot, who saved the life of his family by imitating a smoke detector. Here’s the story from the Associated Press (it’s short, so I’m quoting the entire thing):

MUNCIE, Ind. - A noisy parrot that likes to imitate sounds helped save a man and his son from a [...]

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My father-in-law forwarded this story of a wayward bear and the people who saved him:

The black bear had tried to cross the two-lane California highway on Sept. 15. But…cars approaching in both lanes honked, and the scared bear climbed over the concrete railing. Somehow in his panic, the bear reached the bridge arch, a few [...]

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There was actually a big animal intelligence three weeks ago, but where was I? Focusing on other projects, I’m afraid. No matter! Let’s catch up now…
photo by Mike Lovett

Alex, a 31-year-old African grey parrot, died earlier this month of natural causes. Alex was more than just a pretty bird: he could count, recognize colors and [...]

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Newsweek recently published a cover story about the recent murder of mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I found the article, written by Scot Johnson, quite moving. Here’s how he describes the discovery of the corpses:

The mammoth gorilla lay on her side, a small pink tongue protruding slightly from her lips. She was [...]

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My sister-in-law Tiffany came to dinner last night. She brought me an issue if the PARADE Sunday newspaper supplement from July 29th. The front page story is an article by Eugene Linden entitled “How much do animals really know?” This short piece does a fabulous job of summarizing the current state of research into animal [...]

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My friend Dave pointed me to a brief story at NPR’s “Morning Edition”. Here it is in full:
If you’re an elephant turned bandit, you don’t need a gun; a couple of pointy tusks will do. The Hindustan Times reports an elephant bandit is holding up motorists in the eastern state of Orissa. His modis operandi [...]

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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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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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Lynn forwarded a story from Fox News about bats who have learned how to sober up when they become intoxicated.

Bats often risk getting drunk off cocktails of alcohol that stew inside ripened fruit. And just as driving is dangerous for intoxicated humans, so is flying for drunken bats.
Now scientists find bats are savvy enough to [...]

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An Animal Intelligence reader (I’m sorry, I don’t remember whom) alerted me to a recent article in The New York Times about recent research into the brains of chimpanzees.

Chimps display a remarkable range of behavior and talent. They make and use simple tools, hunt in groups and engage in aggressive, violent acts. They are [...]

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Here’s an article I’ve seen in a zillion different papers. The most extensive write-up comes from The Sydney Morning Herald out of Australia:

A cat helped spare a family in the US state of Indiana from death by carbon monoxide poisoning by jumping on the bed and meowing wildly as fumes filled the home, the owners [...]

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Amanda sent a story of a cat who rides the bus. According to the London Daily Mail, a mystery cat has been hitching a ride for the past few weeks.

The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings — he then jumps off [...]

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Fox News, of all places, is reporting that officials at a zoo in northern Thailand are hoping that “panda porn” will encourage animals in their possession to mate.

Chuang Chuang the panda has been spending his days in front of a big screen television watching panda porn. Authorities at the Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand [...]

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Canaduck forward a story about a dog that saved its owner from choking:

Toby, a 2-year-old golden retriever, saw his owner choking on a piece of fruit and began jumping up and down on the woman’s chest. The dog’s owner believes the dog was trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver and saved her life.
Debbie Parkhurst, 45, [...]

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Nicole sent a story from the San Diego zoo that highlights bonobo intelligence, as well as just how far we have to go before we can communicate with them:

In an incident that is both heart-stopping and heartwarming, a pregnant bonobo at the San Diego Zoo bit off the tip of her keeper’s index finger Tuesday. [...]

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This morning’s USA Today has an extended feature on the recovery of wildlife in Cambodia. The story describes how the Wildlife Conservation Society has been working with the Cambodian government to protect native animals.

“It’s quite moving, I guess,” says Ed Pollard, the society’s technical adviser, standing in the dappled light beneath a canopy deep inside [...]

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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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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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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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The Associated Press has an odd piece of animal news:
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — About 10,000 Juneau residents briefly lost power after a bald eagle lugging a deer head crashed into transmission lines. “You have to live in Alaska to have this kind of outage scenario,” said Gayle Wood, an Alaska Electric Light & Power spokeswoman. [...]

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