Question: What is the next most intellegent species after humans.

Asked by crazychimp13 to Arti, Chris, Dustin, James, Steven on 21 May 2012.

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  1. Photo: Dustin WelbourneDustin Welbourne
    answered on 21 May 2012:

    Hi Crazychimp,

    Though intelligence is a pretty fuzzy concept, most people working on this area would say that chimps are likely the most intelligent.

    Having said that, I like the Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy on this and mice are the smartest, followed by dolphins then us. THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH

    You need to watch this

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  2. Photo: Steven TingaySteven Tingay
    answered on 21 May 2012:

    Are humans the most intelligence species? Actually, your question does not imply that humans are the most intelligent species, you are just asking what is next in line.

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  3. Photo: Arti SinghArti Singh
    answered on 21 May 2012:

    Hi Crazychimp13,
    Dustin has given a nice answer, and I also like what Steven has said. Are humans really the most “intelligent”? Some people would say we are not! A lot of animals are actually probably much cleverer than humans, its just that humans (in general, not necessarily everyone) like to think that we are a superior species to other animals because we can talk and do some other things that other animals seemingly can’t do. Some people even don’t like to be reminded that humans are actually animals.

    Anyway, I looked this up and found a list called the “top 10 smartest animals” and this is what it says:
    1) Chimpanzee
    2) Dolphin
    3) Orangutan
    4) Elephant
    5) Crow
    6) Pig
    7) Squirrel
    8] Pidgeon
    9) Octopus
    10) Rat

    Most lists like this will probably have similar animals in them, but maybe in slightly different orders. This list also had explanations of why each of these animals was considered smart. You can have a look at it here: http://animal.discovery.com/tv/a-list/creature-countdowns/smartest/smartest.html (its a slideshow)
    (Either these people are not counting humans as animals, or they are agreeing that humans aren’t actually as intelligent as we might like to think – you can decide which one for your self!) 🙂

    One thing that humans have that often makes us (in general) think that we are superior to other animals is our ‘self awareness’, which simply means that we are aware of ourselves as beings and can recognise and identify ourselves from among other humans. You can read about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness

    Researchers have discovered that dolphins, elephants and some apes (and maybe some other animals as well, more recently) have self awareness, too – they were able to recognise themselves in mirrors, and could tell that they were actually looking at a reflection of themselves and not another animal. So these animals are certainly quite intelligent… if only we could communicate with them better! I’m sure we’d learn a lot from them. 🙂

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  4. Photo: James ByrneJames Byrne
    answered on 23 May 2012:

    Covered by the others nicely.

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