In addition to elephants, dolphins also use tools when they carry marine sponges to stir up sand and uncover prey. Problem solving: Tool use is an impressive testament to an animal's problem-solving skills.If an animal recognizes itself in a mirror-as we know apes, elephants, dolphins, magpies, and some other species can do-that indicates a heightened level of self-awareness. Self-awareness: The 'mirror test' has long been used to gauge animal intelligence.

Here are some of the ways nonhuman animals exhibit intelligence. There are so many ways in which an animal can be 'smart.' Some are good at language but have poor mathematical skills, and vice versa. What Characteristics Do Intelligent Animals Share? The researchers explained that this tendency had been seen only in primates, crows, and parrots, indicating that ducks may be smarter than originally thought. So, if they followed the two spheres in the first enclosure, they would follow a set of matching cubes in the second enclosure. The ducklings would follow after whichever set best resembled their original imprint. After the ducklings showed a tendency towards one of the sets, the researchers put the ducklings in a different enclosure with different matching and non-matching pairs. They put ducklings in an enclosure and trailed two different pairs of objects around on strings, one pair of matching shapes (like two spheres) and one pair of non-matching shapes (like a cylinder and a cube).

Ducklings are known to imprint on their mothers, but how much does this reveal about their cognitive abilities? To find out, scientists at the University of Oxford studied how the ducklings managed to differentiate between imprinted beings and non-imprinted.

Remarkable creatures