The Future of Animal Intelligence:

Humans have long been the top species on the planet, with our high intelligence, ability to modify our environment, and advanced societies. However, with the continued threat of climate change and other factors that could cause human extinction, it's worth considering what animals could become the new top species if we were to disappear. While it's impossible to predict the future, scientists have some ideas about which animals might be most likely to develop the skills necessary to thrive in a post-human world.

One factor that could influence which animals succeed humans is convergence. This occurs when two unrelated organisms develop similar traits in order to succeed in a particular environment or fill a niche. For example, fish have torpedo-like bodies and fins that make them perfectly adapted to life in water. Dolphins, on the other hand, are warm-blooded air-breathing mammals with a completely different evolutionary background. Despite this, they have evolved a very similar body to fish that allows them to thrive in aquatic environments. This convergence suggests that other animals could evolve hands similar to ours to fill the same role as humans, building cities and modifying the environment.

Primates like chimpanzees and bonobos are already close to this level of development, with their opposable thumbs that they use to make tools in the wild. Birds, which are the only surviving dinosaurs, are also incredibly brainy and can flock together in large groups. Some, such as sociable weavers, even build communal nesting sites. While they may not look like human metropolises, these structures suggest that birds could develop complex societies similar to ours.

Octopuses are another animal that could potentially succeed humans. They are currently considered to be the smartest non-human animals on Earth, able to learn to distinguish between real and virtual objects and engineer their environment. However, adapting to life on land could be challenging for them.

Despite these possibilities, there is still much we don't know about animal intelligence. For a long time, humans believed that animal intelligence could be neatly organized into a hierarchy, with humans at the top and insects at the bottom. However, as technology has improved, researchers have discovered that animals are far more intelligent than we once thought. For example, researchers in Melbourne are using remote-controlled drones to study the breeding patterns of Southern right whales, and artificial intelligence is helping us track and predict the movements of all sorts of creatures.

Dolphins are a particularly intriguing example of animal intelligence. They use names and even have accents, with dolphins in southern Brazil developing a distinct accent after interacting with local fishers for over a hundred years. However, it's not just mammals that are intelligent; birds and insects are also pretty smart. Parrots have complex social groups and can differentiate between members of their species based on their relationships with each other. Even though their brains are tiny, insects are capable of some impressive cognitive feats, like tool use and learning by observation.

In fact, research has shown that intelligence is distributed in different ways across the animal kingdom. Some animals excel in one area but may not be as good in another. It's all about the environmental pressures that each species faces and how they adapt to them. While we know about the usual suspects when it comes to high intelligence in the animal kingdom, such as chimps, dogs, and dolphins, there are some unexpected additions to the list that might surprise you.

One such addition is our feline friends: house cats. Cats have an amazing ability to learn from observation and repetition, which is why we've coined the term "copycats." Some cats have even taken their intelligence to the next level. For example, Nora is a cat whose owner spends her days teaching kids to play piano. Nora watched them closely, picked up on their movements, and started tapping away at the keys