Animal Intellect thread

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Hi, 

As you probably know, I'm an amateur Naturalist, especially when it comes to the minds of other species.

So - anyone have video/research into the intellect of other animals?

 

Here's a couple to be going on with!

 

 

and:

 

 

[Skycaptain]

My cats have a very good sense of time. They know exactly when 0615, or breakfast time is. They have also learnt that if I am taking a shower I will be going out, and feed them first. 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Haha! Yes, my old cat did that, she had her routines down pat, so did my old dogs too.

 

https://youtu.be/0fiAoqwsc9g

[Yatogami]

I was just watching Blue planet 2, and I saw a segment about Clownfish building a house to have their nest on by obtaining a coconut shell adrift at the bottom. Truly astounding they were able to solve such a difficult problem. 

 

I see many animals as "non-human people". It's facinating to see animals evolve over some ought years. (Yes evolution can happen at any time).

[Yatogami]

On 7/1/2018 at 5:18 PM, Skycaptain said:

My cats have a very good sense of time. They know exactly when 0615, or breakfast time is. They have also learnt that if I am taking a shower I will be going out, and feed them first. 

My own cat is very schedual orientated. From nap time, to the times he can sleep in my chair. He even spends a whole hour looking out the window each day. So precious.

 

He gets very upset if I am home early, as he loses a whole our of napping in my chair time. DLS also upsets them.

[Epitaph]

Octopuses are supposedly one of the most intelligent animals out there. Probably even at the top of the list besides us.

[Skycaptain]

@Malum, you're right about DLS. Mum and stepdad's dog doesn't mind the clock going forward, as food and walkies come earlier, but hates the clock going back 

[RoseGoesToYale]

I have two dogs, and one of them can for certain understand human rules of engagement. You know the dog vs. dog neck biting game? She and I have a human vs. dog version (without neck biting).

The rules of play are:

1. Play begins with the appropriate vocalizations from either player. The other player must respond in kind.

2. The object of the game for the dog is to hands of the human with the mouth. Hard biting is not allowed. The hand must be released immediately after capture. Nibbling on the opponent's chin is a penalty.

3. The object of the game for the human is to play keep-away with the hands by moving them around. Brushing or touching the opponents face is allowed.

4. The game is over when one or both players walks away.

 

We follow these rules every time, and she has yet to break any skin. Do I think dogs are intelligent enough understand human social conventions? Absolutely. Some of our social structures also get imparted to them.

[Kuraara]

Heya so I have just graduated with a Bsc (Hons) in Behavioural Biology and several of my final year modules focussed on discussing this very topic!! How intelligent animals are is a highly debated topic within the scientific community, largely because we have no definitive definition of intelligence within the context of animals. Pretty much everyone has a different definition for what constitutes "intelligence" and many of those definitions come from an anthropocentric and anthropomorphic point of view, i.e. we scale the intelligence of animals based on their similarities to humans or use comparable methods of judging human "intelligence" on animals. In the case of the later this causes issues because animals are not humans and thus the way they acquire, process and react to information in the world around them in inherently different ways. In such cases, we can fail to document an animal's "intelligence" because or experimental design fails to incite the desired behaviour.

 

For example, in an experiment where scientists were trying to make dogs imitate the behaviour of other dogs (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2007.04.026) they found that if a dog observed another pulling a lever with its paw while holding a ball in their mouth, the observers would more often pull the lever with their mouths. However, if the observer dogs saw another perform the same behaviour with their mouth empty, they would imitate the behaviour of pulling the lever with their paw. Thus, in this case, we see that the dogs were able to imitate, but that the experimental design determined whether the dogs would exhibit the behaviour.

 

There are also issues like is a behaviour intelligent if it is "innate" to an animal, i.e. if it occurs due to genetics and the animal is not fully conscious of or learns the behaviour? @Skycaptain and several other referred to their cats developing routines. My cat has learnt that at 9pm she gets a handful of Dreamies (an event that was started to encourage her to come inside for the night) and now meows within 5-10 minutes of 9pm every night for her treats. Indeed this behaviour does seem "smart", but it can be explained as the result of the cats' circadian rhythm (i.e. their internal clock). The cats are essentially learning to associate a time of day with a "reward" (e.g. food, attention) and act accordingly to gain this reward. As such many scientists would not consider this particularly intelligent behaviour, but others would definitely disagree!!!

 

Unfortunately, it's a very big topic so I won't go into too much more detail now. I can give more information, answer questions or point towards some more research if people are interested or want to read about specific areas in more detail. I myself find the topic super interesting so I'm excited to discuss it with others!

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

You can just imagine this little guy thinking...hmmmm....it's comfy, but I'd rather have the lid off thank you!

 

On 7/9/2018 at 11:38 PM, Ardoise said:

I'm betting on a cephalopod takeover.

 

Thanks to @Ardoise !!

[Anthracite_Impreza]

My dog proving

a) reciprocity is more important than running in fetch

b) she knows how gravity works

c) Yorkshire can be understood by non-native speakers 

 

https://streamable.com/sllss

[Tunhope]

TW. This isn't a happy story but I'd like to know what folk and @Kuraara  think. Might be better in Tea and Sympathy though. My cat, Trotinov, has been poorly for quite a while now. Heart trouble, kidney trouble. He's been on medication (Forticor) and has been getting thinner and losing weight. About a week ago, it was obvious he was really struggling - even more than he has been. No appetite, just wanted to sleep, changed his habits - preferred to be outside all the time including at night, no energy...Then, a few nights ago, he  disappeared and we (husband and self) haven't seen him since. We have  quite a large, overgrown garden and we've checked it as best we could but we can't see him, and this sounds awful, but, it's very hot - if he's dead, I would be expecting him to smell. Tomorrow, I intend to go round all my neighbours and ask them to check their gardens too.

I'm 99% certain that he's dead but what I what I want to know, in an animal intelligence sense is this: do cats know that they are going to die and go somewhere away from their home to do so (It will have been a struggle for him to go far) or do you think he's fallen asleep somewhere and been too weak to retrace his steps? I'm sure there'll be some research about this.

Makes no difference to the fact that we care about him and  want to find him, even if it's just to bury him, but we've wondered about it. 

[Skycaptain]

@Tunhope, it's commonplace for a dying cat to run away to die. There is an instinct inbuilt into several animals to do this, so their dead body doesn't either give their home locale away to preditors, or cause pollution with its decomposition. 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Sorry t hear that @Tunhope, lots of animals know death and take measures. Our old collie dog went away to die beside the sheep, this was many years ago, we thought at the time that he likely wanted to guard them till the end, but there might be a different reason.

Here are things about animals' awareness...

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

The second film wasn't the right one, I'm trying to track down the account, it was part of a book about his life and work. His wife continues his conservation. Evidently they knew he was gone, even though they were miles away and they walked miles and in large numbers to stay at his home.

[Kuraara]

@Tunhope Yes the behavioural response of injured, ill or dying cats is to retreat somewhere they can be alone and hide there. Lack of appetite, sleeping lots and changes in habits are also indications that a cat is reaching the end of his/her life. The need to be alone in particular seems to stem from an instinct to avoid predators while vulnerable. Just had a quick look into the research, and while there is a bunch of research into domestic cats, I can't find any papers focussed on the behaviour of injured or dying cats. I would be understandable though if it's rarely been formally studied since they will be ethical issues with working with injured or dying animals and thus it would be hard to get enough data for a publishable paper. From the articles online it seems like most of the information is coming from vets and pet specialists.

 

Really sorry to hear about your cat. I hope you find him soon.

[Tunhope]

Thank you for looking into this, @Kuraara @chandrakirti and @Skycaptain I found out this morning that someone who is doing the house up next door  found Trotinov. Instead of asking around ( though I appreciate I shouldn't sound as though I'm making recriminations: I know the man thought he was doing the right thing) he phoned a charity for sick animals. Someone collected  Trotinov , took him to a vet and, eventually, he was put to sleep.He was very weak and apparently had far more wrong with him than my vet had thought. I managed to find this out earlier today and I'm going to collect Trotinov myself tomorrow so we can bury him in the garden. He wanted to be alone as you've suggested, and must have thought he'd found a  nice empty house, but he chose the wrong place, sadly. 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

@Tunhope , I'm sorry this happened to your friend,but at least you now know what happened so you can have some closure. If he was anything like mine, he probably had no chances of survival and  there would have been nothing anyone could do, so please don't beat yourself up about it. My old girl is spread in her favourite garden spots too. Sending out all the best to you.

[Skycaptain]

@Tunhope *Huggles *😷 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

How about these guys?

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]