Are We Smart Enough to Understand How Smart Animals Are?

Is a human smarter than an octopus?   “It’s really the wrong question to ask,” says primatologist Frans de Waal. “Because I’m smarter than an octopus in things I’m good at, like language and technology. But the octopus is smarter than me in many other ways.”  Inky the octopus recently made an astounding escape from his tank in the national aquarium of New Zealand. Under the cover of darkness, he squeezed through a crack in the top of his tank, stretched his long body through a drain hole in the floor and slithered down a 50 meter pipe to escape into the sea. Is Inky a genius?

http://tinyurl.com/z35cq6t

Animals Are Smarter Than Humans Give Them Credit For

Is your dog smarter than your friend’s baby? Are cats smarter than dogs? What about Inky the octopus, who recently made a daring escape from his tank in a New Zealand aquarium — is he smarter than those internet cats whose owners “trapped” them in circles made of tape?

http://tinyurl.com/hh87yxb

Kissing Octopus Unveiled For The First Time At The California Academy Of Sciences

Scientists are unveiling a rare octopus that has never been on public display before. And unlike other octopuses, where females have a nasty habit of eating their partners during sex, Larger Pacific Striped Octopuses mate by pressing their beaks and suckers against each other in an intimate embrace. The beautiful creature can also morph from dark red to black-and-white stripes and spots and can shape-shift from flat to expanded.

http://tinyurl.com/byj6ssa

Baboons aren't the only clever animals

French researchers reported this week that they had trained six baboons to read — or at least to scan a string of four letters and determine when they form a word and when they don’t.  The experiment, which was reported Thursday in the journal Science, cements baboons’ place among an ever-growing menagerie of clever animals.

http://tinyurl.com/84h49fy

Video: Amazing Octopus Shapeshifts Into 'Furry Turkey with Human Legs'

Meet the mimic octopus: one of nature's most remarkable disguise artists. This creature has the phenomenal ability to morph its body in an instant to take on the shape of just about any other animal around it.

http://tinyurl.com/82e4ffx