12 Famous Puzzle-Solving Animals

ELEPHANTS USE INSIGHT

Why is it said that an elephant never forgets? Probably because they have an extensive memory bank and are one of the brainiest creatures in the entire kingdom. So when the trunked critters failed insightful problem-solving tests, scientists knew something was up. Preston Foerder found that when he tested if three Asian elephants would use sticks placed outside of their enclosure to obtain food, they could pick up the sticks, but couldn't get the food. "They didn't have trouble getting or using the sticks. They hit them on walls and toys … but they never used any of these methods to try to get food," said the lead author of the study. At this moment, he realized that elephants didn't use sticks to get food because they needed to hold the stick with their trunk.  However, when presented with movable objects, like a plastic cube and an aluminum tub, the elephants stood on the object or moved them to get to their reward. As a result, the study found that "elephants are right up there with other large-brained animals when it comes to cause-and-effect understanding and mental problem-solving," said Frans de Waal, primatologist at Emory University. (Science Mag)

MARINE MAMMAL MATHLETES

We always knew dolphins were smart, but how smart, exactly? A study conducted last July suggest that dolphins may use complex nonlinear mathematics when hunting. After finding that dolphins blew multiple tiny bubbles around prey as they hunted, Tim Leighton, a professor of ultrasonics and underwater acoustics at the University of Southampton, decided to test it out. He and his colleagues modeled types of echolocation pulses that dolphins could emit. They then processed them using nonlinear mathematics. The technique ended up working and as a result, could explain how dolphins could hunt with bubbles. The math is complex and involves addition, subtraction, multiplication and ratio comparisons. We wish we could've had a dolphin math tutor during our algebra days. (Discovery)

COMPUTER CHIMP NERD

We wouldn't dare challenge Ayumu the chimp to any sort of game, even if our life depended on it ('cause we'd totally lose). The Japanese-located primate has been known to "crush" his human opponents in a number of memory games. This was concluded after Ayumu was able to reconstruct the order of briefly flashed numbers on a computer screen. Researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University was responsible for this discovery. Matsuzawa has worked closely with Ayumu and other chimps for decades and strongly believes that their working memory is superior to that of their human counterparts. "I don't deny that humans are wonderful creatures, but they simply can't compete when it comes to rapid storage and recall," he said.  (Science News)

DOG CAN UNDERSTAND MORE THAN 1,000 WORDS

We're lucky if our dog is able to figure out the difference between "sit" and "down." How about being able to identify over 1,000 words and simple sentences? It's just another day in the life of six-year-old female border collie Chaser. Psychology professor John Pilley spent years training his dog to identify hundreds of different objects, to which she was able to easily follow along. Every day, Pilley would dedicate four to five hours teaching his dog about new objects and their names. Over time, Chaser could recognize over 1,022 different objects, consisting of 800 stuffed animals, 116 balls and 26 Frisbees. Chaser's ability to understand so much of the human language could give insight to how humans learn speech, according to researchers. (ABCNews)

SEA OTTER PUZZLE SOLVER

When life hands Nellie the otter a puzzle, she will solve it. She doesn't need fingers or thumbs to be able to figure out how to jam a block into its appropriate hole. All she wants is a fishy reward to congratulate her on her cuteness and intelligence. Watch the video that Point Defiance Zoo posted of their star swimmer and the talented puzzle-solving skills she possesses. (YouTube)  

CROWS HAVE COMMON SENSE

The New Caledonian crow is so clever that its intelligence could rival that of a smarty-pants primate. Research has found that the Australian bird uses its common sense to retrieve food. For example, the bird can operate a stick to fish ants out of nests. "It was surprising to find that these 'bird-brained' creatures performed at the same levels as the best performances by great apes on such a difficult problem," said Russell Gray of the University of Auckland in New Zealand. (Live Science)

LUCY THE UNDERWATER PUZZLE SOLVER

Lucy the giant Pacific octopus is doing big things at the Blue Reef Aquarium. According to workers, she is about the solve an ingenious set of underwater puzzles. She has already learned how to unscrew jars with her tentacles in order to retrieve food. Aquarists all over have been trying to test just how smart Lucy is, and have been trying to create more and more complicated puzzles for her to decipher. Not only is the giant Pacific the largest cephalopod, it is among the smartest in its family. (Capital FM) 

DEXTEROUS DINGOES

Bradley Philip Smith was trying to run his business when an unusual problem arose: every day, a name tag would turn up missing. Totally confused as to why anyone would want to steal a useless name tag, Smith decided to set up a video camera to catch the thief. The footage revealed that the bandit was not an employee, but a four-legged fellow named Sterling. Sterling was a wild dingo that lived at the Dingo Discovery and Research Center. Still, Smith couldn't understand how he could reach the height at which the name tags were kept. He and his staff decided to set up an experiment to find out. They attached food to the enclosure at about the same height as the name tags. What they witnessed on their hidden camera was incredible. Sterling managed to push a table that was inside of his enclosure towards the mesh fence of his enclosure. He jumped onto it, and tried to reach up to get the food. Still a little to short, Sterling used his front paws to "walk up" the fence and get his mouth close enough to get the food. What's more is that the dingo had never been trained to display this behavior, showing that this wild dog could use tools that were given to him in order to obtain his reward. (Scientific American)

TECH-SAVVY BEARS

Your four-year-old niece isn't the only one who can maneuver an iPad. New research has found that black bears can proficiently interact with a touch-screen computer, as long as they receive a tasty treat for it. Scientists at Alabama's Mobile Zoo found that these giant furry creatures were able to tell the difference between the number of dots on a screen when it was associated with different colors and sounds. The study proved that these mammals are just as smart as primates. Take that, apes! (Global Animal)

CAPTIVE HYENAS SCHOOL WILD ONES

A recent study found that captive hyenas are much better problem solvers than their wild brothers and sisters. The study observed how hyenas responded to a steel puzzle box that contained raw meat inside. Among the 19 captive hyenas, 14 of them were able to retrieve the food by sliding a bolt latch. In more than 400 trials with 62 wild hyenas, only nine animals were able to open the box. Captive hyenas have even been found to outperform chimpanzees. Who would've thunk! (Live Science)