Who is smarter a rat or a man. smart rats

Apocalypse. After the nuclear war more peace in our usual sense. Cities in ruins. Civilization has disappeared. Humanity is dead. Only hordes of rats roam the ruins. They are not afraid of radiation, their time has come - the era of rats. And how long it will last, and what path their evolution will take, no one knows. Perhaps in time they will conquer not only the Earth, but the entire Galaxy.

Scary, isn't it? No one saw how it would be, but the theme of the end of the world is painted only in this way. True, they say that the rats will not be alone in this utterly destroyed Earth. In the new State of Chaos, cockroaches will become allies or rivals. No one else will be able to survive.

And all why? Yes, because rats are the smartest animals on our planet. They appeared hundreds of thousands of years ago and have been living next to humans ever since. In any case, this is what archaeologists say, who found the remains of rats in ancient burials. Then, according to the same scientists, rats were the subject of hunting - easy, in comparison with large animals, prey.

But everything flows, everything changes, and with the development of agriculture, rats began to hunt. At first, not on people, but only on their crops. Having bred to the size that is commonly called "hordes", they literally devoured everything that came into their mouths. Asia suffered - the place of the rat population, Europe did not know this scourge.

But the man could not sit still, and he found a way to cross the seas and oceans. Rats, as befits "true" friends, went after him. Of course, without his knowledge. This is how Europe met black rats. They were the pioneers. At first, they didn’t bother much - there were simply not enough of them. But rats have one distinctive feature - the period from growing up is only 4 months. One female is able to bring up to 8 broods per year. And in each litter there are from 10 to 20 pups, and, as a rule, half of them are females. In four months they will bring their cubs. The reproduction rate is incredible, and the number of rats increased so rapidly that the Europeans had to fight them no longer for crops, but for their lives.

Soon in sea ​​travel gray rats, better known among the people under the name "pasyuki", also set off. Those with their habits did not differ in the slightest from their black counterparts. Just as greedy, and just as ruthless. But the worst thing was not the number of rats, but the diseases they carried. Plague - that's what mowed down the city. There were no more people, but the rats, at least that! They are not afraid of the plague, they know how to adapt to all misfortunes.

Terrible stories are told about rats and their bloodthirstiness. And they kill and eat people who have fallen asleep or weakened from illness, and steal babies, and gnaw their fingers and cheeks when they are drunk. And everything is true. They have such a vile habit. We are just food for them, that's how they treat us. And according to statistics, several hundred thousand people become victims of rats every year. More than a shark attack. More than car accidents.

Rats are extremely smart. How many poisons have people tried in the hope of killing rats! A few dozen die, and the rest acquire immunity. One or two fall into ingenious traps, the rest will no longer fit. Scientists have found that this is because rats are able to "speak". There are more than 50 sound signals in their "dictionary". Cases have been recorded when a rat caught in a trap “warned” its relatives about the danger. Such is the care for relatives!

Rats are very adventurous and resourceful. Belgian farmers have repeatedly observed how rats stole eggs from chicken coops. A couple of thieves are on the case. One rat hugs the egg with its paws, the second helps it roll over onto its back, then grabs it by the tail and drags it into the hole. The first rat holds the egg firmly and serves vehicle. Clever, don't say anything!

I read somewhere about a clever way that rats came up with to steal cream from a jug with a narrow neck. Gathered a small company - five individuals. One rat climbed onto the jug, dipped its tail into it, twisted it a little, then took it out and turned its back to the "accomplices". They licked her tail. The sour cream extraction operation was repeated seven times. After that, the rat jumped off the jug, another one took its place. Now only the first rat was fed. Social justice was observed.

Both populations - both black rats and gray ones - have abstract thinking and are very fond of music. And, just like people, they have their preferences. The employees of our opera house say that during the performances the rat is never seen. One could explain this by the fact that they are frightened by a large number of the public. But it turned out that this was not the case at all. Rats love popular music, they are attracted to trendy hits.

Checked it out in a simple way- they turned on a disk on which songs specially selected for the skit were recorded. The dancers said that rat noses stuck out of all the cracks. They probably had their own disco that day. “Still, pop music sounds infrequently at the opera house!”, the artists joked. “But no! the stage workers objected to them. “When we work with scenery, we often include chanson and hits.” Now it is clear who spoiled the taste of theatrical rats?!

These animals are capable of experiencing emotions. They know how to express joy at the sight of a person who feeds them. They get angry, swear and fight. They know how to cry and whimper. Human-raised rats respond to a nickname and are able to ask for food and water. Willingly play with different objects and even ask for a certain toy.

Rats have long divided their zones of influence and never, unlike people, fight each other for them. Black rats live upstairs. For them - attics and upper floors. Gray rats prefer basements and underground communications. There is their kingdom. Sometimes a black rat is suddenly found in the basement. This is not a violation of the agreement, not an invasion of someone else's territory. This means that there is less food upstairs, and the gray brethren kindly allowed black friends to join their territory. Such are the rats' high, in the full sense of the word, relations.

So who is smarter? Black? Grey? Both are equally smart! They live next to us. There are more of them than us. According to the most careful calculations, it turns out that on average there are 6 rats per inhabitant of the Earth. Most of them, of course, in megacities, but also in small towns both in the villages and in the fields there are also millions of them. And as long as our interests do not overlap, we live in relative peace and tranquility.

Many years ago, when scientists just started to conduct the first experiments with rats, there was an opinion that these rodents were not at all adapted to life. And the real indisputable facts on the face: their eyesight is poor, their hearing is also, in any case, rats do not perceive pure sounds, but only hear rustling, they do not have color vision, their sense of smell is unimportant compared to other animals. At first glance, one gets the impression that such a creature not only cannot resist a person, but generally cannot withstand competition in the animal world and must inevitably perish.

However, life shows completely different results. Rats are so smart rodents that sight and hearing play a secondary role for them. Let's start with nutrition. Gluttony, omnivorousness can lead creature to obesity, beriberi, anemia. Perhaps this would have happened to someone else, but not to rats. Scientists began to observe the nutrition of gray rats in the laboratory: they gave them a variety of foods that were overly saturated with vitamins, or proteins, or fats and carbohydrates. The rats could choose any amount of food they wanted. However, for some reason, they always chose the necessary products and in the right quantity so that the body receives all the necessary substances in a ratio that does not harm health. However, even a person who cares very much about his health does not adhere to such a smart diet!

Then the following interesting fact was recorded, the discovery - it turned out that rats are subjected to stress. It is known that many animals have their own territories. It is the same with rats: if a rat enters someone else's territory and meets the owner there, it usually dies. In addition, the animal does not die in battle, but from stress. The owner doesn't even need to touch uninvited guest. He just circles around the stranger, and he falls and does not make any attempt to escape. This is enough for the alien rat to stop breathing after a while.

Rats are so psychologically developed that they are able to “kill with a look” not only a stranger. The English scientist S. A. Burnet, who discovered stress phenomena in them, found that rats have a strict subordination among males. All of them fall into 3 categories. The first ones are the rulers, before them everyone trembles, humiliates themselves, sucks up to them. The second category includes males are also quite strong, but cowardly. And if they disobey a male who has the status of a master, he will kill them, and without even touching them, with a “look”, that is, he will lead to a state of stress, after which death will come. Rats of the third category - weak, unhappy - almost always subject to premature death: give only a reason and the male of not only the first, but also the second group will bring them to stress.

This is a very strange, albeit cruel, form of protection of the genus: rats thus get rid of the weak, do not allow them to breed offspring, which can also be weak, and thereby constantly improve their genus, contribute to its prosperity, make it more resistant to various negative factors. .

And, finally, the ability to survive is developed in rats with the help of the ability to navigate well under any circumstances, to find a way out of difficult situations. Scientists have done many experiments and made sure that smart rats find their way in complex labyrinths even if they glue their eyes and cut off the hairs with which they navigate in space. Smart rats show amazing resourcefulness if they need to get their own food. For quite a long time, stories about transporting eggs by rats (one of them lies on its back, clasping the egg with its paws, and the rest pull it to the hole, holding the tail) or about extracting oil from a bottle (the rat lowers its tail there and then licks the oil from it) were considered fiction. ). However, numerous observations, videos of the behavior of rats and experiments have confirmed the reliability of these interesting facts in reality.

Year by year, zoologists are becoming more and more convinced that the highly developed nervous organization of rats more than compensates for their poor eyesight, hearing, etc., making them strong, smart, almost invincible. There is another thing: fertility, characteristic of all rodents. But modern science knows that excessive fertility has and reverse side medals: if too many rodents are born, they can die of starvation, diseases will begin among them. But the fact of the matter is that with rats (as well as with mice) this does not happen. Not so long ago, scientists made another equally amazing discovery: rodents can independently regulate their reproduction - if there are too many rats or mice, their adrenal glands begin to increase, after which a special hormone is released that slows down reproduction. Conversely, when the number of rodents decreases for some reason, the adrenal glands begin to contract, reproducing enough hormone for normal reproduction.

Despite many shortcomings, evolution has made rats smart, which allows them to successfully exist in our world. cruel world. But this is only a small part of the amazing abilities and interesting facts that mankind has revealed in such seemingly ordinary and not very noticeable animals.

When we learned what kind of intelligence some animals have, we became uneasy. Perhaps we are not watching them, but they are watching us.

20. Turtles

Turtle Tortilla in the tale of Alexei Tolstoy was not in vain the personification of wisdom. A lot of modern research confirms that some species of turtles have remarkable intelligence.

Turtles are trainable, they easily find a way out of the labyrinth, they can adopt the skills of other turtles, they become well-trained, quickly cease to be afraid of a person and feed from his hands.

19. Cephalopods

Cephalopods are the smartest of the molluscs. Many of them have the ability to mimicry, octopuses successfully pass the “look and remember” test and have excellent navigational abilities.
Squids live in packs, and scientists have already suggested that they have their own codified language.

18. Bees

Bees are supermen among insects. They can navigate by the Sun, sense the Earth's electromagnetic field, and remember visual objects. In addition, bees are social creatures. They are able to communicate with each other with the help of the so-called wagging dance.

17. Crocodiles

Scientists today admit that crocodiles have been unnecessarily demonized. American zoologist from the University of Tennessee Vladimir Dinets observed crocodiles for 10 years and came to the conclusion that they are, firstly, trainable, and secondly, playful.
A story is known when a crocodile lived with a person who cured him after being wounded until his death. He calmly swam with his friend in the pool, played with him, tried to scare him, allegedly attacking him, and even allowed himself to be stroked, hugged and kissed on the face.

16. Sheep

Sheep in the generally accepted view are narrow-minded animals. However modern research they say that the sheep good memory on faces, they are social animals and capable of building relationships. Their main problem is timidity. They are so reluctant to show their weakness that they do not complain about sores until it becomes impossible. Quite human.

15. Pigeons

We all know about pigeon mail. This type of communication, which has existed for much longer than most modern ones, is based on the ability of pigeons to "homing" - the instinct to return home. In Russian history, Princess Olga effectively took advantage of this.
The brain of a pigeon is capable of processing and storing huge amounts of information. Pigeons collect it using all their senses. The pigeon's eyes are designed in such a way that they remember only the necessary information, cutting off everything superfluous. Pigeons have very sharp eyesight combined with an excellent memory. This allows them to form a route based on visual impressions.

14. Horses

Horses are smart and cunning, they have a good memory. Akhal-Teke horses are monogamous. They serve the same master all their lives.

All horses are trainable. So, the Arabian horse will never step on your foot, and the police breeds "Budenovtsy" and "Donchaks" are trained to disperse the crowd, so you should not expect delicacy from them.

13. Parrots

Everyone knows the ability of parrots to imitate, but parrots can not only talk funny.

The African Gray Parrot can be compared with 3-4 in its intellectual and emotional development. summer child. Parrots have a good memory, they are capable of empathy and the manifestation of emotions, they learn and have a rare quick wit. So, parrots living in the wild put nuts under the wheels of cars so that they crack them.

What is interesting: parrots continue to evolve, and their ability to think analytically increases.

12. Fur seals

Fur seals are not only cute, but also very smart. They are trainable and easy to train. The seals have a great built-in navigation system. Despite the fact that they are pack animals, fur seals go hunting alone and generally show individualism.

11. Raccoons

Raccoons are in trend today. These smart sociable animals have outlandish ingenuity. To get food, they are able to solve logical “multi-move” and actively use tools to, for example, open a trash can. They are able to remember the solution of the task for three years.

10. Raven

Crows can remember and distinguish not only the volume and weight of an object, but also the material it is made of. So, crows will never put a piece of wood in a vessel to raise the water level, but they will put a stone.
Ravens are not in vain called "feathered primates" - they know how to use a mirror and a digging stick

9. Jays

Jays - Einsteins bird world. Like all corvids, they have a phenomenal ability to memorize and imitate sounds. When jays hide food, they do it very cleverly, and then, if their hiding place is found, they can spy on the thief. This led scientists to the conclusion that jays are able to put themselves in someone else's place, look at the situation through someone else's eyes - the eyes of a potential thief. This is a rare property in the animal kingdom.

8. Proteins

If you go to the forest now to feed the squirrels, you can see that the squirrels themselves will hardly eat - they will prepare food for the winter, hiding it in hiding places. Squirrels have a very good memory. They remember all thousands of their bookmarks for two whole months.

Squirrels are excellent thieves, and they can not only run / grab / run away, but also wait and predict the behavior of a potential raid victim.
Squirrels are smart. If they see a threat, they can pretend to bury the treasure in one place, and then re-hide it.

7 Pigs

Even Academician Pavlov noted that "the most nervous animal that surrounds us is a pig." Pigs are smart and cunning animals. The hunters say: "If you go for a bear - prepare the bed, if you go for a wild boar - prepare the coffin." You can never catch a wild boar on the same bait, these wild pigs have good analytical skills. Domestic pigs are purists when it comes to daily routines. Especially quickly they remember the time of feeding.

6. Rats

Rats are one of the smartest animals. Rats, like us, have dreams, they communicate with each other in the ultrasonic range so as not to be heard by predators. At the same time, rats are able to suddenly change the frequency of signals.

Rats have the richest vocabulary screams with special meanings. Rat - the only mammal except for a man who knows how to laugh. Recently, scientists have discovered in rats a reaction to funny situations.

Rats, as you know, are not alone. They know how to build a hierarchy in their society. Conducted by Didier Desors, a scientist from the laboratory of behavioral biology of the University of Nancy, the experiments showed that the greatest degradation of the brain as a result of stress was among the exploiters - they were afraid of losing power.

5. Cats

Domestic cats are able to express their feelings with the help of facial expressions, gaze, movements, accurately recognize human intonations, and even imitate them. Cats have a better memory than dogs. If a cat is outside, it joins the pack. They have a strict hierarchy and distribution of responsibilities. Some researchers consider such flocks a sign of secondary feralization, that is, a return to the wild state.

4. Dogs

The intelligence of dogs is a scientifically proven fact. These animals are trained, they have a good memory. Recent studies confirm that the dog is a very intelligent friend of man.
Scientists at Harvard University, USA, working under the guidance of Professor Mark Hauser, proved that dogs are able to "parody" human facial expressions and gestures. They are echoed by scientists at the Vienna University of Psychology, who published the results of research in the journal Current Biology, convinced of the ability of these animals to "selective imitation."

3. Elephants

Sharikov in Bulgakov’s novel said: “Well, I don’t understand, or what? The cat is another matter. Elephants are useful animals. In a way he was right: in practical terms, an elephant is really more useful than a cat. They have been faithful helpers of man for many centuries.

Aristotle echoes Polygraph Paligrafovich: "The elephant is an animal that surpasses all others in wit and intelligence." Elephants do have a very good memory and a flexible mind. They were even able to study human language. An elephant named Kaushik, who lives in Asia, learned to imitate human speech, or rather, five words: annyong (hello), anja (sit), aniya (no), nuo (lie down) and choah (good).

2. Whales

When we say whales, we mean whales, dolphins, and killer whales. This is one of the most intelligent representatives of the fauna. Much has been written about their abilities and superpowers.
In captivity, whales can even learn to mimic human speech. They imitate it by sharply increasing the pressure in their nasal cavities and causing the sound lips to vibrate.
The abilities of cetaceans are already recognized at the state level: in India this year, dolphins were recognized as individuals and dolphinariums were banned.

1. Primates

Humans and apes share about 98% genetic similarity. We put monkeys in first place in our rating. Their learning ability is amazing, their memory and intellectual abilities have amazed scientists for many years.

Monkeys have learned to live next to a man, to steal from him, to cheat. In India, Hanuman's langurs - temple monkeys - are recognized as one of the sacred animals. They are famous for their ability to steal anything they like. Nothing can be done about it - langurs are untouchable.

1. Rats appeared on Earth 48 million years earlier than humans.
2. On average, there are 2 rats for every inhabitant of the planet.
3. If the mouse is enlarged to human height and the skeleton is straightened, it turns out that the joints of mice and humans are arranged in the same way, and the bones have an equal number of parts.

4. In the Middle Ages in Europe, at the direction of one of the bishops, rats were excommunicated from the church.
5. A rat can swim for 3 days in a row, swim several kilometers (recorded record - 29 km) and drown if it does not find an opportunity to get out.

6. Gray rats are able to move at a speed of 10 km / h, jump up to a height of up to 80 cm, and in an aggressive state - up to 2 meters in height.
7. In a rat, the heart beats at a speed of 500 times per minute; in a house mouse, the heart beats 700–750 times per minute.
8. The finest hairs covering the tail of a rat are used in ophthalmology during eye operations.
9. Rats dive well and climb ropes, pipes, trees perfectly. During the day, rats are able to overcome from 10 to 50 km.
10. The teeth of rats grow all their lives, so they gnaw something all the time to grind them down.
11. A rat easily gnaws through such solid substances as concrete and metal.
12. Rats whistle in the ultrasonic range, which allows them to communicate with each other without attracting the attention of predators. And they whistle not with their lips, but with their throats. They are also able to suddenly change the frequency of signals.
13. Rats have the richest vocabulary of screams with special meanings. At the moment of stress, the rat cub makes a sound equivalent in volume to a working pneumatic jackhammer, however, due to the fact that it has an ultra-high frequency, a person does not hear it.
14. It only takes a rat 50 milliseconds to figure out where the smell is coming from.
15. A rat senses x-rays in the part of the brain that controls the sense of smell.
16. A rat consumes about 12 kg of food per year, but this is incomparable with the amount of food that it makes unusable. Statistics say that every sixth farmer feeds not people, but rats.
17. Rats are able to distinguish poisoned food from ordinary food even when the concentration of poison is one part per million.
18. A rat can live longer without water than a camel, and generally longer than all mammals.
19. Rats can withstand very high levels of radiation, but can die from mental shock or prolonged stress.
20. The rat is the only mammal other than humans that can laugh.
21. Rats also dream.
22. The rat family owns a plot with a radius of about 150 m.
23. Scientists have put forward a version that rats could cause the extinction of dinosaurs. Rats - lovers of eggs - massively sucked out the contents of dinosaur eggs, thereby stopping the continuation of their kind. This seems to be true, since in our days in Ireland, rats have eaten all the marsh frogs.
24. During the Great Patriotic War during the bombing, people hid in houses into which rats ran.
25. In Illinois, under the threat of a fine of $ 1,000, "it is forbidden to hit rats with a baseball bat."

There are a huge number of beautiful animals on our planet. Scientists and specialists have been trying for a long time to determine whether which one is the smartest .

10th place: Rats

Yes, yes, we were not mistaken. Usually, when the word "rat" immediately appears the appearance of a gray, unpleasant creature with long tail. In criminal jargon, a "rat" is a term used to refer to a person who steals from his own people. But read the next few paragraphs and you may change your mind about these highly intelligent animals.

They are always where we are. They feed on what we have left. We may not even notice them, but they are here and building their dark kingdoms right under our feet. They are found on every continent except Antarctica. And they are not going anywhere. This is a well-oiled machine for conquering the world.

The fact that rats are among the most intelligent animals has long been known. For example, let's cite the story of the head of one of the departments of the famous Moscow Eliseevsky store Larisa Darkova.

It all started with the fact that rats managed to steal eggs without breaking them. For a long time unnoticed by these gray rodents, observation was carried out in the cellars of Eliseevsky. And here's what turned out. “In order not to damage the fragile shell,” says Larisa Darkova, “these clever ones came up with the following: one rat lies on its back and rolls its muzzle into the hollow formed on the stomach egg. At this time, another "accomplice" grabs her by the tail, and in this way they drag the egg into the hole.

Mankind has been at war with rats for centuries, but we cannot win. Some biologists believe that gray rats have a collective mind that controls the actions of each individual. This hypothesis explains a lot: both the speed with which gray rodents dealt with other species, and their success in the fight against humans.

It is the collective mind that helps rats avoid inevitable death. The well-known phrase "rats flee from a sinking ship" has behind it numerous, officially registered cases when rats leave doomed ships in advance. Another example is earthquakes, which scientists say cannot be accurately predicted. And the rats just leave the city a day or two before aftershocks that can destroy buildings. Perhaps the rat collective mind is able to see the future better than us humans.

Rats have a clear hierarchy. In addition to the leader and subordinates, there are so-called "scouts" in the rat society. Thanks to this, all the efforts of mankind in the invention of ingenious mousetraps and rat poisons are nullified. The “suicide bombers” “appointed” by the leader go on reconnaissance and try poisoned baits. Having received the SOS signal, the other members of the rat pack stop paying attention to poisonous products. And the "kamikaze" sit in their holes and drink water, trying to wash their stomachs. The same is true with traps. If the rats notice their relative in a trap, then the flock will immediately leave the dangerous place.

The point is that, unlike humans, a rat never steps on the same rake twice, and therefore it is practically indestructible.

We may hate these gray rodents, but when you recognize their abilities, a sense of respect involuntarily arises. The rat is a real superorganism, able to live and thrive in almost any conditions, the vitality of which has been worked out for 50 million years.

They perfectly climb almost any surface, pipes and trees, they can climb sheer brick walls, crawl into a hole the size of a five-ruble coin, run at speeds up to 10 km / h, swim and dive well (there is a case when a rat swam 29 kilometers) .

When bitten, the teeth of a rat develop a pressure of 500 kg/sq.cm. This is enough to gnaw through the bars of the lattice. A wild rat in an aggressive state can jump to a height of up to 2 meters. Rats can survive in absolutely extreme conditions, in which other animals would surely die. So, these, in general, heat-loving animals can live in refrigerators at a temperature of minus 17 degrees and even multiply.

Rats, these practically invisible, nimble and intelligent creatures, are not afraid of a clumsy two-legged man who, over many millennia of war, has not come up with anything smarter than a simple mousetrap.

9th place: Octopus

No. 9 on our list of the smartest animals is octopus is one of the smartest sea ​​creatures . They know how to play various forms and patterns (such as colored light bulbs), solve puzzles, navigate mazes, and have short and long-term memory. As a sign of respect for the mind of octopuses, in some countries of the world even laws have been passed requiring the use of anesthesia before performing operations on them.

Octopuses are invertebrates, and the closest species to them are squid and cuttlefish. In total, there are more than 200 species of various octopuses in the world that inhabit the seas and oceans of the Earth.

Octopuses are skilled hunters, acting from ambush. Open battle is not for them. This attack tactic also performs the function of protecting the octopus itself. If necessary, the octopus throws out a cloud of ink, which disorients the predator attacking it. Octopus ink not only allows the owner to hide from view, but also partially deprives the predator of the sense of smell for a while. Max speed the movement of the octopus is just over 30 km / h, however, they can maintain this pace for a very short period of time.

Octopuses are very curious, which is usually associated with intelligence. In nature, they sometimes build their shelter houses from stones - this also indicates a certain intellectual level.

However, octopuses cannot figure out that glass is transparent. This is proved by the following simple experiment: we give the octopus a treat in the form of his favorite crab, but in a "package" - a glass cylinder without a top lid. He can continue fruitless attempts to get food for a very long time, knocking his body against the walls of a transparent vessel, although all he had to do was climb the glass by 30 centimeters, and he would freely penetrate through the open top of the cylinder to the crab. But it is enough once to accidentally jump over his tentacle upper edge a glass vessel, and a conditioned reflex is developed in it. Just one successful attempt is enough, and now the octopus knows exactly how to get the crab out of the glass.

Octopus tentacles perform irreplaceable functions:

• they crawl on tentacles along the bottom;
• bear weight;
• build nests with tentacles;
• open shells of mollusks;
• attach their eggs to stones;
• They also serve as guards.

The upper pair of hands is intended for feeling and examining surrounding objects. More long tentacles Octopuses are used as offensive weapons. When attacking prey or defending themselves from the enemy, they try to grab the enemy with them. In "peaceful" time, "combat" hands turn into legs and serve as stilts when moving along the bottom.

The development in animals of such organs that they can use as simple tools leads to the formation of a more complex brain.

Various experiments show that octopuses have great memories. And the “intelligence” of an animal is primarily determined by the ability of its brain to remember experience. When everything is in order with memory, the next step is ingenuity, which helps to draw conclusions from the experience gained.

Over the past 10 years, the most advanced experiments on the behavior of octopuses have been carried out at the marine station in Naples. Scientists have found that octopuses are trainable. They are no worse than elephants and dogs distinguish geometric figures - a small square from a larger one, a rectangle shown vertically and horizontally, a white circle from black, a cross and a square, a rhombus and a triangle. For the right choice, the octopuses were given goodies, for the mistake they received a weak electric shock.

Octopuses are easily hypnotized that says enough high organization his brain. One of the methods of hypnosis is to hold an octopus in the palm of your hand for a while with your mouth up, the tentacles should hang down. When an octopus is hypnotized, you can do anything with it - it does not wake up. You can even throw it, and it will fall lifeless, like a piece of rope.

These intelligent marine animals are still poorly understood, but scientists are constantly discovering new and impressive abilities of octopuses.

8th place: Dove

Pigeons can be found in large numbers in all major cities, and most of us consider these birds to be "bad" creatures that get in the way. But numerous scientific experiments show that these are very smart birds. For example, pigeons can remember and recognize hundreds of different images over the years.

The most common and well-known dove is the rock dove (lat. columba livia) - a bird whose homeland is considered to be Europe. A group of scientists from the Japanese university Keio University as a result of experiments showed that rock doves are able to recognize themselves in the mirror better than small children. Prior to these studies, it was believed that only humans, primates, dolphins and elephants had such abilities.

The experiments were carried out as follows. Pigeons were shown 3 videos at the same time. The first video showed them in real time (i.e. a mirror), the second showed their movements a few seconds ago, and the third was recorded a few hours before now. Birds made their choice with their beak, pointing in a certain direction. According to the results of these tests, it turned out that pigeons remember their actions with a delay of up to 5-7 seconds.

Pigeons can be trained to perform a sequence of movements and distinguish between two objects with slight differences - quite impressive for a simple pest.

In Tsarist Russia, pigeons were valued no less than large household animals. Noble families bred their own breeds of pigeons, and these birds were a source of special pride and were inherited.

The useful skills of pigeons have always been valued. For example, the ability of these birds to find their way home and their fast flight made it possible to use them to transmit mail.

7th place: Belka

This nimble animal has a brain the size of a large pea. However, studies show that proteins are perfectly oriented in space, have extraordinary intelligence and phenomenal memory, and can think and analyze.

Thanks to their intelligence and ability to survive, squirrels can be found everywhere. They have penetrated almost every corner the globe. Squirrels are everywhere. From alpine marmots on snowy mountain peaks, to squirrels living in the hot Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Underground squirrels - prairie dogs and chipmunks - have penetrated into the underground space. Squirrels have penetrated all cities. And the most famous of the squirrels is gray.

One of the widely known distinctive features protein is their ability to store nuts for the winter. Squirrels do not hibernate and must find up to 3,000 hidden nuts to survive. They bury some types of nuts in the ground, others are hidden in the hollows of trees. This work requires incredible effort.

Thanks to their phenomenal memory, squirrels can remember the location of a nut 2 months after it was buried. Fiction! Try to hide 3,000 coins. We guarantee that in a month you will be able to find only the one that is in your wallet.

Squirrels have their thieves, too, who decide not to forage for nuts, but wait and watch from ambush until other squirrels begin to bury their winter diet. But for every action there is a counter-action. If the squirrel notices that they are starting to follow it, it pretends to bury the writing. While the thief is wasting time on the empty hole, the squirrel moves his nut to another, more secret location. Isn't this the best proof that squirrels have intelligence?

Planning and remembering the right route to food is vital. Mind and memory test: on the top of the wall are 2 round holes, both have doors that open to one side. One leads to a dead end that will force the squirrel to start over, and the twisted tube - a more difficult path - leads to nuts. Question: Will the squirrel choose the correct hole?

Studies show that squirrels have excellent spatial orientation, and already from the ground they can see which hole leads to nuts. Proteins without hesitation fit into the right hole leading to food.

The ability to pave the way, agility, phenomenal ingenuity, spatial orientation and lightning speed - this is the secret of the success of squirrels on our planet.

Very often, squirrels are considered pests. After all, they gnaw everything that is possible and impossible.

6th place: Pigs

Despite the reputation of gluttonous and perpetually dirty creatures (he can find dirt everywhere), pigs are, in fact, very intelligent animals. Whether domestic or wild, pigs are known for their ability to adapt to different environments.

The American zoologist E. Menzel believes that in terms of the development of their own language, pigs are second among animals after monkeys. Pigs respond well to music, for example, they can grunt to the beat of the melody.

With high intelligence pigs are highly stressed. Piglets are very attached to their mothers, and if they are separated, especially in early age, they experience it very painfully: the pig eats poorly and loses a lot of weight.

The biggest stress for pigs is moving from one place to another. No wonder Academician Pavlov stated that the pig is the most nervous of the animals surrounding a person.

Some scientists claim that the intelligence of a pig is approximately corresponds to the intelligence of a three-year-old child. In terms of learning ability, pigs are at least at the level of cats and dogs, and often surpass them. Even Charles Darwin believed that pigs were at least as intelligent as dogs.

were held various studies on intelligence among the pigs. In one test, a feeder was connected to a computer. A cursor was displayed on the monitor screen, which could be moved with a joystick. Also, a special area was depicted on the monitor: if you get into it with the cursor, the feeder automatically opens and feed is poured out. Surprisingly, the pigs were excellent with the Piglet joystick and move the cursor to the right place! Dogs cannot repeat this experiment and lose here to pigs in intelligence.

Pigs have a fantastic sense of smell! It is them, for example, that are used as truffle seekers - underground mushrooms - in France. Pigs were used to find mines during the war, trained sniffer pigs can easily cope with the search for various drugs.

According to the composition of the blood, the physiology of digestion and some other physiological features, pigs are very close to humans. Closer only monkeys. That is why transplantation often uses donor material taken from pigs. Many organs of pigs are directly or indirectly used in the treatment of dangerous human diseases, and their gastric juice is used in the manufacture of insulin. A pig often suffers from the same diseases as a person, and it can be treated with almost the same drugs in the same doses.

5th place: Crows

Crows are extremely intelligent animals. Scientists believe that their ability for analytical thinking is not inferior to those of higher primates.

Crows are extremely adaptable and have adapted exceptionally to living alongside humans. Our actions force them to adapt each time in a new way. Crows don't survive with us, they thrive. On the planet, they are everywhere, except for Antarctica and part South America. And throughout the territory you are unlikely to meet crows further than 5 km from a human dwelling.

We are finding more and more evidence that ravens are very, very smart. Their brain size is about the same proportion as that of a chimpanzee. There are many examples of various manifestations of their ingenuity.

better than many people understand, which means red and green light when crossing the street. Crows living in the city collect nuts from trees and place them on the roadway under the wheels of passing cars to open the shells. Then they wait patiently, waiting for the light they need, return to the road and collect their shelled nuts. An impressive example of innovation in the animal world! The important thing is not that the crows have learned to do this, something else is important. This method was first seen in crows about 12 years ago in Tokyo. After that, all the crows in the area adopted this method. Crows learn from each other - it's a fact!

Another incredible study was carried out with a crow from New Caledonia. On this island, crows use twigs to pluck insects from the bark of trees. In the experiment, the crow tried to get a piece of meat from a narrow glass tube. But the crow was given not the usual stick, but a piece of wire. She had never dealt with such material before. In front of the astonished researchers, the crow independently bent the wire into a hook with the help of its paws and beak, and then took out the bait with this device. At this point, the experimenters fell into ecstasy! But the use of tools is one of the highest forms of animal behavior, indicating their ability to intelligent activity.

Another example is from Sweden. The researchers noticed that the crows wait for the fishermen to throw their lines into the water, and when they leave, the crows flock, reel in the line and eat the fish that was the bait.

You can talk endlessly about the intelligence of crows. These observations were made at the University of Washington and speak of crows have an amazing memory. Here, the researchers had to catch a pair of crows flying around the area. The students went out, caught the birds with a net, measured, weighed, and then released them back. And they could not forgive such an attitude towards themselves! Subsequently, the crows flew up to those students when they walked around the campus, and shit on them, flew around in a flock, in short, spoiled their lives in every possible way. This went on for a week. Then it went on for a month. And after the summer holidays...

Writer Joshua Klein has been studying ravens for over 10 years. To confirm the presence of intelligence in these birds, he decided to conduct a rather complicated experiment. In short, he created a special vending machine and put it in the field, and scattered coins around. The machine was filled with nuts, and to get them, you need to throw a coin into a special slot. Surprisingly, the crows quickly figured out this task, picked up coins, lowered them into the slot and got nuts.

We know a lot about the species that are disappearing from the planet as a result of the expansion of human habitats, but no one pays attention to the species that live and thrive. There are about 1 million crows in Moscow alone. These smartest representatives of birds have ideally adapted to the human environment.

4th place: Elephant

These are not just clumsy giants with big ears and good memory. The philosopher Aristotle once said that an elephant is "an animal that excels in wit and intelligence."

With a mass of more than 5 kg, the brain of an elephant is larger than that of any other land animal, but small compared to the total body weight: only ~ 0.2% (in a chimpanzee - 0.8%, in humans about 2%). Based on this, one would think that elephants are rather stupid animals. But evidence suggests that relative brain size cannot be an accurate indicator of intelligence.

Elephants are animals that are good able to show their emotions, both positive and negative. Their "facial expressions" are made up of movements of the head, ears and trunk, with which the elephant can express all sorts of, often subtle, shades of good or bad mood.

Elephants are extremely caring and sensitive towards other members of their group, as well as other animal species, which is considered highly advanced form of intelligence. For example, elephants feel very deeply the loss of someone from the herd. They can gather near a dead body for several days. Cases of "burials" have been recorded, when elephants covered their dead comrades with a layer of vegetation.

Elephants incredibly good memory. A person who treated them well or badly, elephants remember all their lives. There are many examples when the owner offended the elephant, and only years later the elephant took revenge on him, and sometimes even killed him.

Like us already know, use of tools animals directly points to capacity for intelligent activity. To determine this, the following studies were conducted at the Washington Zoo. In the elephant enclosure, fruits and young bamboo shoots were hung high on a tree. Animals, standing on the ground, could not even reach them with their trunks. Not far from this place, the researchers put a stand in the form of a cube and began to observe ...

At first, the elephant simply moved the cube around the enclosure, and in fairness it should be noted that he did not immediately figure out what to do: the experiment had to be repeated 7 times. And suddenly the elephant was enlightened: he got up, went straight to the cube, pushed it to the place where the treat was hanging and, standing on it with his front legs, took it out with his trunk. After that, even when the cube was out of reach, the elephant used other items - car tire and a big ball.

Elephants are believed to have good musical ear and musical memory, and are also able to distinguish melodies from three notes. In general, these huge animals are amazing artists. They are well known for their ability to draw on the ground while holding a stick with their trunk. In Thailand, they even made an attraction when several Thai elephants drew abstract drawings in front of the audience. True, it is not known whether the elephants really understood what they were doing.

3rd place: Orangutans

Great apes are considered the most intelligent creatures on Earth after humans. Of course, people are biased in this matter, but the mental capabilities of great apes are hard to deny. So, 3rd place in the list of the most intelligent animals is the orangutan or "forest man" (orang - "man", hutan - "forest").

They have a high culture and strong social ties. Females stay with their children for many years, teaching them everything they need to survive in the forest. For example, orangutans cleverly use leaves as umbrellas from the rain, or memorize places where in different time trees bear fruit for years. By the age of 10 years, an orangutan can taste and identify more than 200 species of various edible plants.

Greater primates, such as chimpanzees and orangutans, are able to recognize themselves in the mirror, while most animals react to their image in the mirror as a different individual.