--More on Animal intelligence---

More good stuff from NOVA documentaries.

Bonobos and Chimps can cooperate on tasks but chimps will stop cooperating if the rewards are placed in one container. Bonobos will still go ahead and cooperate and share if the rewards were placed in one container.

Chimps can learn to ask for help when faced with tasks and help human researchers with task (which they understand the goal of).

 Chimps also can understand the actions of other chimps to be good and/or bad...they will then sabotage the other chimps if they did a bad action and innocent chimps would not be punished.

Chimps can also learn to recognise numbers as symbols and how they ascend/descend in pattern.

Apes learn by copying. There is a group of chimps who have learned (via copying) how to make and use spears to hunt bush-babies. They also have learned to enjoy taking baths in shallow water bodies. Thus ape groups have culture.

But emotions and impulsive actions deny chimps greater success in cooperation. Chimps consistently are unable to control choosing bigger rewards even though they were always given less as a result. The understanding of delayed gratification and better control over our emotions give us the edge in cooperative tasks.

Dogs are less volatile, more interested in human behavior/actions and more tolerant towards humans as compared to wolves. Border Collies are even able to make inferences when the information that they have doesn't gel with the orders that they have been given. The gene CTNND2 in the dog genome is found in the genome of Border Collies and is important in humans for cognitive development.

Octopus can learn how to undo puzzles in order to get to food. They also use their mental processing in order to put on camouflage to deceive predators. Pattern, color (brightness) and 3 dimensional shape are accomplished by octopus in 7/10s of a second. Octopus have also used environmental tools to hide and ambush prey: this shows cognitive planning.

Alex the parrot (1976-2007) was an ordinary bird who was trained by Dr Irene Pepperberg with items and names. He was very inquisitive, could make requests and identify similarities and differences. He could even combine symbols in new ways to create meaning (he termed cake as "yummy bread" when he first tried it) and simple maths. He had the intelligence level of a 5/6 years old child.