Are animals intelligent?
Rats can learn to perform tricks, cats seem to sense what we are feeling. Dogs know when their owners are coming home and anyone who has swum with a dolphin will tell you that these animals are more intelligent than most people think. Clearly, animals can learn and remember. However, they lack language and the ability to understand what they are and they therefore can't really be considered “intelligent” creatures. Studies carried out on chimpanzees and gorillas suggested that they are able to learn symbols and sounds. But are they actually using them to communicate? No one knows.
In the late 1960s, an American scientist tried to find out if various animals understood what they actually were. He painted a red dot on their faces and put them in front of a mirror. If an animal touched the red spot, it was, according to the scientist, actually recognizing itself in the mirror. Besides humans, only chimpanzees and orangutans passed this test.