Super Smart Animals

For centuries the thought that animals could talk,

solve problems...

Aw, she's got it.

..even feel emotion, was the stuff of fiction.

But all that's changing.

I'm Liz Bonnin, a scientist who's been travelling the world,

meeting the planet's smartest animals.

From skateboarding dogs,

to chimp geniuses.

I've discovered cutting-edge research...

This is ridiculous.

..that reveals animals are much more intelligent than we think.

But how smart are they?

Prepare to be astonished...

Ha-ha! Amazing.

..entertained...

He wants to chase and tickle with you now.

I want to chase and tickle with you too.

Did you see that?

..and even outwitted...

Ha ha!

..by some of the world's greatest animal minds.

'Einstein. We like Einstein. Einstein likes you too!'

Wherever you live, whether it's the frozen Antarctic...

..the baking desert...

..or the deepest ocean,

life can be a huge struggle.

How do animals deal with the problems they face?

Some have evolved extraordinary physical solutions,

over millions of years.

But others use their brains.

In the last few years, scientists have made an incredible discovery.

An animal that can beat us in an intelligence test.

I didn't think it was possible.

Until I came here. Home to some of the smartest animals in the world.

But it's not the jungle...

..it's Japan.

Kyoto University is home to world-beating experts

in numbers and memory.

And I don't mean the scientists.

I'm talking about the chimps.

Among them could be the world's greatest animal mind.

A chimp child genius.

His name is Ayumu.

He was born at the University, where he's studied ever since.

In this test, he's already mastered the order of numbers.

Not bad for a chimp.

But I've heard he's capable of much more.

At five years of age, Ayumu had already outclassed the very

scientists who had set him his intelligence tasks.

And now, apparently, at 11,

he's performing feats of memory that humans simply find impossible.

And here's the test at which he excels.

You've got a few seconds to commit these numbers to

memory before they're covered up.

The challenge is to remember where those numbers are

and then recall them in the right order.

Are you ready?

It's definitely not easy,

but just watch Ayumu.

He's memorising those numbers in less than half a second.

That is really impressive.

He is fast and there is no way he is doing this by accident.

I mean to stumble across the right answer he'd have

one in 362,000 chance of getting it right.

It looks absolutely effortless.

Ayumu's skills are special.

But in the wild, animals are also proving

they're much more intelligent than we ever thought.

I've come to Alaska, to find one of the biggest brains on the planet.

Any minute now they're going to hit the surface.

Turn your head.

Oh!

Humpback whales.

Here in Alaska, just a small group of them

use their brains to catch fish in a way seen nowhere else on Earth.

In just a few weeks, they'll set off on a 3,000-mile trip

to their breeding grounds.

But to survive the journey, every one of these 30-tonne mammals

needs to catch around a million fish.

And catching that much food, takes brains and teamwork.

These guys could never catch so many fish on their own.

They've got to work together.

And to be able to work together, you've got to use your intelligence.

But it's not just working as a team that makes these animals so special.

Off they go.

One by one.

It's what they're all making when they're down there.

Together they dive down.

One whale circles the prey,

letting out a chain of bubbles from its blowhole, in a wide arc.

Another whale swims below the fish,

frightening the prey upwards with a feeding call.

With this circular wall of bubbles,

the whales have essentially made a fishing net out of thin air.

This right here...

..is one of the most impressive tool-using social groups

on the planet.

Believe it or not, the bubble net is actually a very effective tool.

And it's only by using it that each of these humpback whales

can catch almost half a tonne of fish every day.

That's what happens when you put your mind to it.

Scientists once believed that using tools set humans

apart from other animals.

But we're not as special as we thought.

Chimps were first spotted using tools in the 1960s,

but since then we've noticed animal tool-users all over the world.

These boxer crabs pick up poisonous anemones,

waving them to scare off attackers.

Finches in the Galapagos use sticks to winkle grubs from rotting wood.

And sea otters in America crack shells against stones

on their stomachs.

These animals are impressive but are they thinking things through,

or is it just instinct?

Can animals solve an unexpected problem

they haven't had generations to perfect?

To be able to do that, they'd need a blinding flash of inspiration...

..a Eureka moment.

These "Eureka" moments are incredibly important

to the scientists who study intelligence

because it shows that something much more complex is going on up here.

Now, I'm here to show you an animal that, like us,

might just be capable of these moments of true insight.

This is Leipzig zoo in Germany.

Scientists work closely with the apes here,

and are setting some deceptively simple experiments,

which prove that orang-utans can be as ingenious as humans.

In this challenge, a tasty peanut is placed at the bottom of a tube.

It's too far for fingers to reach,

and the tube is bolted securely to the bars.

They're just presented with a tube and a peanut.

They need to use their intelligence to figure it out.

To find out how humans approach the problem,

we set up a similar experiment for the visitors at the zoo.

There you go, free sweets up for grabs.

All you've got to do is get them out of the tube.

We placed everything needed within reach.

But not one human,

child or adult,

had a Eureka moment.

So what happened the first time this orang-utan, Dakana,

and her baby, were given this challenge?

In a moment of genius Dakana takes water from her drinking fountain

and uses it, to float the peanut to within reach.

One after another almost every orang-utan here

was able to solve this problem by themselves.

Result! She gets the peanut.

Nobody's ever shown orang-utans how to do this.

You know, if you raise the level of something using water,

not even a solid tool, but a liquid tool, you can get your food reward.

They figured this out by themselves.

That's amazing.

How do animals become so good at solving unexpected problems?

It helps to be able to think into the future,

and to plan ahead.

And living in the grounds of a Hawaiian hotel

is an animal that looks like he can.

A night heron. The staff call him Hank.

His home is an all-inclusive resort,

where food is literally thrown at you.

Hank often loses out to the larger swans.

But when he finally grabs some food,

he does something completely unexpected.

He doesn't eat it.

But instead, appears to have a plan.

Hank takes the bread.

He places it in the water...

..and he waits.

He could eat it at any time.

But he holds out for more.

Two fish, in a single mouthful.

Planning ahead certainly pays off.

And Hank has learned how valuable his bait is.

There's no point wasting it on fish too big for him to eat.

So, he takes it out of harm's way.

There's increasing evidence that some animals can plan ahead,

which makes them fantastic problem-solvers.

But it takes time to build up the knowledge that you need,

and a simple experiment can demonstrate how animals learn.

Floating in this tube is a little red token.

And the challenge is to get it out.

Now, the tube is too narrow for your hand to fit in,

but there are things that can help.

Like these yellow balls, that are actually quite heavy,

and these blue ones that are light as a feather.

So, how will children cope with this test?

This five year old throws everything in.

She's been told she can use the balls and she does,

all of them.

But as they get older, kids experiment.

This six-year-old tries a few of each

before settling on the heavy ones.

She notices that only those that sink raise the water level.

And at seven, this child knows enough about floating

and sinking to solve the problem in her head before she's even started.

These kids, with know-how, never make a wrong choice.

But it's only through trial and error,

that we get the knowledge we need to eventually solve new problems.

And that comes with experience .

To find out if other animals learn in the same way, I'm going to