If I asked you to name the animal that was most human-like, you’d probably say chimpanzee, right? It’s a good answer: we are close to them on the evolutionary tree, and our genomes are about 95% identical.
Are you smarter than an elephant? (CCBYSA: SuperJew)
But if you limited the comparison to ‘high-level’ behaviors of humans—like feeling empathy, mourning the dead, or cooperating with others—then you’d find a lot of non-primates that are surprisingly similar to us. For example, like ours, the brains of humpback whales contain spindle cells, neurons that are thought to be involved in advanced thinking, self-awareness and communication. Dolphins can categorize objects, learn an artificial language, and recognize themselves in a mirror, according to some studies.
Then, of course, there’s the wise old elephant. Loads of studies attest to the elephant’s keen mental abilities, but I want to point out a new one that’s particularly cool. Scientists have demonstrated that two Asian elephants will patiently work together to get a sweet snack—even without any previous training. The study was published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
You can read more about exactly how the researchers set up this clever experiment (and see a video!) at Wired Science.
