Collection
Clever Animals
Problem-solving, tool use, recognizing themselves in a mirror, and traditions passed from one animal to the next. Everything here has been tested, and the results are on record.
All 12 animals in this collection, from the ape to the sheep. Most of them live in Asia and Africa.
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Ape
Hominoidea (superfamily, about 20-26 species)
Great apes recognize themselves in a mirror, and chimpanzee tool use is a local tradition that has to be taught.
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Chimpanzee
Pan troglodytes
Tool use is a local tradition. One community cracks nuts with stones while its neighbors never learned how.
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Cockatoo
Cacatuidae (sulfur-crested: Cacatua galerita)
Sydney cockatoos taught each other to open wheelie bins, and the trick spread suburb by suburb with local variants.
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Crow
Corvus (genus, about 45 species)
It recognizes human faces, holds grudges for years, and tells other crows who wronged it.
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Dolphin
Delphinidae and other families (bottlenose: Tursiops truncatus)
Each one invents a signature whistle for itself and keeps it for life, and they copy each other's to call by name.
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Goat
Capra hircus
It opens gate latches, solves puzzle boxes, and still remembers the solution a year later.
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Goldfish
Carassius auratus
In a 2022 study, goldfish learned to steer a wheeled tank across a room to a target.
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Parrot
Psittaciformes (order, about 400 species)
Alex, an African gray, learned about 100 labels, could count, and answered none when asked what differed.
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Pig
Sus domesticus
They pass the mirror test, and have been taught to move a cursor with a joystick held in the snout.
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Pigeon
Columba livia (rock dove); family Columbidae
Pigeons tell a Monet from a Picasso, generalize to paintings they have never seen, and pass the mirror test.
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Sea Lion
Otariinae (subfamily, six species)
A sea lion named Rio learned logical reasoning once thought limited to primates.
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Sheep
Ovis aries
A sheep remembers about 50 individual faces for two years, and can learn human faces from photographs.
No animals match those filters.