Smartest Animals on Earth

Raccoon Raccoons may gravitate to the garbage, but they’re also super smart. In the early 20th century, research conducted by ethologist H.B. David proved that raccoons are expert lock pickers who can easily recognize moved or rotated devices! “Trash pandas” also boast incredible memories and can remember puzzle solutions for up to three years! 

Bees When a team is comprised of 50,000 individuals working shoulder to shoulder, democratic decision-making and delegation are vital. And it’s those qualities that keep honey bees alive and thriving. The genius insects have perfected the art of cooperation, landing them on our smartest animals on Earth list.

Octopus Once upon a time, an octopus named Otto lived at a German aquarium. Mellow and chill, Otto wasn’t fond of the facility’s bright lights, so he took matters into his own…tentacles…and sprayed water on the overhead lamps to short-circuit them! Otto also threw rocks at the glass when he wasn’t feeling famous and wanted some alone time.

Pigeons Have you ever played the game memory? The winner matches the most tiles by best remembering where everything is on the board. Well, guess what? If you ever played memory with a pigeon, you’d probably lose and lose hard! A study revealed that pigeons can hold over 700 images in their heads at a time!

Pigs Pigs are super smart. They easily navigate mazes, understand emotions, learn sign languages, and even have best friends with whom they prefer to spend time! Believe it or not, baby mud dabblers are smarter than baby humans! Point of fact: piglets master self-awareness faster than infants. Plus, little pigs know their names by two weeks old! It takes humans a few months.

Dolphins Humans have a 1/40 brain-to-body-size ratio; dolphins have a 1/50 one. What does that mean? Well, it’s complicated. But for our smartest animals on Earth list, it means dolphins are wicked intelligent.

Crows The Isaac Newtons of Birding World, crows know physics! OK, they may not be proficient in binomial theorems, but they understand how water displacement works, which is a lot more than other animals can do! Crows also plot new flyover paths to avoid trigger-friendly humans that hunt crows during migratory season. 

Elephant Elephants rank among the largest terrestrial mammals, and they’re also some of the smartest animals on Earth! Famously, the pachyderms have incredible memories. Not only can they remember watering hole routes hundreds of kilometers long, but they also recognize each other after years of separation.

Chimpanzee Chimpanzees are a lot like humans. They learn verbal languages, mourn the passing of loved ones, and make tools. Also, like humans, their intellectual prowess is determined by both genetic factors and environmental ones. 

Humans We don’t mean to boast, but humans take the smartest animal cake. We have superior reasoning abilities and can manipulate environments in astounding ways. However, if humans were better able to communicate with other animals, we might just discover they think we’re the dumbest species on Earth!