‘Clever Kingdom’ - Published in Piedmont Post

We humans certainly are smart, but we are not the only members of the animal kingdom to possess impressive brainpower! And while we may not see falcons inventing computers or scorpions writing poetry anytime soon, there are some intelligent animals worldwide whose wonderful minds will leave you in awe.

Chimpanzees, for example, are solid on numbers. They can quickly tell the difference between a higher and a lower number of objects. They can still do it even if that higher number is all teeny tiny things and the lower number objects are ginormous. And they can learn to put numbers in order and do so even faster than we humans can!

The New Caledonian crow is adept at using tools to solve complex problems. It shapes sticks into hooks and even combines multiple tools to create super-tools for retrieving food.

African grey parrots have tongues that allow them to "speak," so scientists can teach them how to say words and even what those words mean! These talkative birds can answer questions about numbers, colors, shapes, materials, and more about objects. That means that they are working at the same level as a four-year-old human being!

So next time you check out a park, visit the Oakland Zoo, or see an animal in a book or TV show, remember that there is much more to these animals than meets the eye. Inside their heads, they are complex, intelligent creatures capable of amazing things, and we are just starting to study how smart they are! You may be the next famous scientist to discover an amazing new animal ability!

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