Sophie Fevvers — 10 months ago(May 23, 2025 08:23 AM)

https://sentientmedia.org/which-animals-are-most-intelligent/
Here are 30 of some of the most intelligent animals in the world, and how they prove their smarts.
Humans
We tend to judge other animals against our own species’ intelligence . Though we are beginning to realize that animals express their intelligence in unique ways, most research seeks to establish their thinking by comparing it to benchmarks we’re familiar with: our own.
The main markers of human intelligence are the abilities to learn from experience, use knowledge to manipulate surroundings, adapt to new situations, and understand and handle abstract concepts. These broad areas represent a vast array of skills and abilities, such as the capabilities to learn, remember, memorize, reason, perceive and solve problems. As a species, we excel in all of these areas and, as a result, we expect other species that we deem intelligent to excel in them too.
Dolphins
Dolphins are one of the most intelligent species on the planet; they are highly capable of both learning and mimicry.
Dolphins in different pods use mud to create traps and use sponges for protection against coral as they search for food, demonstrating their ability to use tools and manipulate their surroundings.
Dolphin pods are known to alter their hunting location and timing to adapt to or avoid new human activities, like construction.
Ravens
Ravens are extremely intelligent birds, and, in part because of it, they are associated with omens in many cultures.
Ravens have better planning skills than human toddlers. One study revealed that they could select a key from an array of objects that could be used to open a special box with a treat inside. They could find the correct key 90 percent of the time — and patiently wait a whopping 17 hours for the opportunity to use it to get a treat.
Pigs
Pigs are the classic example of an animal that surprises many people with their intelligence.
Pigs are so smart that they can play simple video games, as proven by four pigs at Purdue University’s Center for Animal Welfare Research. The game consisted of using a joystick to manipulate a dot that hit a wall. After hitting the wall, the pigs received a treat. All four pigs displayed skill far greater than would be expected by random chance. In order to play the game, the pigs had to understand that moving the joystick resulted in movement on the screen.
Chimpanzees
Chimpanzees have been subjected to countless hours of research with the goal of better understanding their cognition. The result is that we can confidently say that chimps are one of the most intelligent species on earth. Humans share 99 percent of our DNA with chimps, so this should come as no surprise.
Chimps can recognize themselves in mirrors, a key component to abstract thinking. More than that, they are able to recognize themselves on video, a skill humans don’t get until around four years old.
Elephants
The expression “an elephant never forgets” exists for a reason: these giant creatures are extremely intelligent. Elephants can recall specific migration routes, and where to find water along the way. They can also differentiate between different groups of predators (including different groups of people) based on the way they smell and sound.
On a number of occasions, elephants have been known to manipulate their surroundings to achieve their goal. For example, Kandula, an elephant housed at the National Zoo in Washington D.C.used a block as a stepping stool to get to fruit outside his reach.
For years, researchers failed to recognize elephants’ skill in manipulating their surroundings, and their ability to use tools — because of human assumptions about what constitutes intelligence.
They didn’t consider that elephants depend on their senses of smell and touch far more heavily than humans or apes when interacting with their surroundings. As a result, they offered elephants sticks to use as tools, which elephants can only hold with their trunks, dampening their ability to touch and smell the world around them.
Now, elephants are regarded as one of the most intelligent non-human animals.
African Gray Parrots
African Gray Parrots are thought to be one of the most intelligent species on the planet, rivaling even apes. In some areas, they surpass the abilities of five-year-old children.
African Gray Parrots can use deductive reasoning to solve problems, specifically determining which of two cups contains a food reward. More advanced versions of the same test revealed the parrots’ ability for logical thinking. In one such experiment, Griffin, the test subject, outperformed five-year-old children when it came to understanding concepts of certainty versus possibility.
Octopuses
Octopuses are skilled escape artists, with some even escaping their enclosures and swimming all the way back to the wild. Their jailbreaking is less surprising in light of the fact that they have a larger brain-to-body ratio than any other known invertebrate species.