People have long noticed the intelligence of hooded crows. A man walks across a field with a gun - the crow will fly away to a safe distance. There is nothing in his hands, the crow sits calmly on the top of the tree and lets him quite close. V.M. Peskov described this bird, as always, laconically and figuratively: “Living close to people, the crow accumulates worldly wisdom.” But sparrows, pigeons, and some other birds live even closer to people than crows, but for some reason they are not particularly wise, and crows are quickly becoming smarter and bolder before our eyes. What's the matter?
In the 1950-1960s, Moscow University professor Leonid Viktorovich Krushinsky conducted interesting research into the abilities of animals. He proved that different animals act intelligently in a new environment, and not simply on the basis of unconditioned and conditioned reflexes. He called this ability extrapolation, and the entire system of reactions that manifest themselves in such conditions - extrapolation reflexes. Many animals from snail to dolphin have been studied. So, in the developed “table of ranks,” the crow, together with its closest relatives - the jackdaw, rook and raven - took the highest level in intelligence, sharing it with the monkey and dolphin. Even the dogs remained below.
The displays of character and intelligence in crows are simply amazing. Every more or less observant person can immediately recall noticed scenes from the life of these creatures. Moreover, they will mostly be about city crows. After all, city crows are no longer at all the same as crows living in ordinary natural conditions. These are two different populations that have become so isolated that there is almost no contact between them. City crows live sedentary lives. All year round They stay within the same yard in pairs or families, feeding in garbage dumps and near roads. They sometimes began to have up to two broods per summer, feeding 5-6 chicks, which safely leave the nest and grow to adulthood. They live closely together - nests are not far from nests, they almost form colonies in the city. They have ceased to be so afraid of humans that they almost take food from their hands. And sometimes they even dare to attack us. Natural crows - migratory birds. Out of 5-6 chicks, 2-3 survive until autumn. They nest once a season. The nests are located far from one another. They themselves actively search for food in wildlife. Beware of people. In winter, they gather in flocks, spending the night in cities and feeding during the day in large country dumps. That's the big difference between the two crow populations.
ABOUT! Thank you very much for your question from the field of intellectual science!
You named four biological species, capable of being human partners.
I recently wrote about comparing pigs and dogs.
It remains to compare dolphins and crows (ravens, not crows, they are different birds!).
When we ask who is smarter, we implicitly mean: “Whose intelligence is closer to that of a human?” Let's compare from these positions.
Since the development of intelligence corresponds to the biological foundations of the existence of each species (it is what is required for survival), then for the comparability of species intelligence with human intelligence, the most complete coincidence of biological characteristics is necessary.
And note: a person lives on land, a dolphin lives in water, a bird lives in the air. Already from the point of view of perception of space and attitude towards it, these three types are very different. A person lives essentially in two-dimensional space - in order to soar vertically, he needs special devices. The bird lives either in two dimensions (when on the ground) or in three (in flight). But a dolphin or any fish exists exclusively in three-dimensional space. Hence, there are very significant differences in sensory skills (the perception of gravity and body position in space belongs to the sensory complex of touch), in motor skills and in physical capabilities. All this greatly affects the activity nervous system and on intelligent mechanisms. Well, for example, a person, a pig and a dog do not have such behavioral options as diving on prey or diving under it and throwing it out of the water. The intelligence of a bird must accommodate diving, and the intelligence of a dolphin must accommodate diving. But the dolphin does not have such options as knocking down its prey or crushing it with its weight. Well, and so on, and so on - a lot of things.
The city crow has an important advantage over any wild bird(including in front of the raven). She lives in the anthropogenic environment, which leads to the development of multivariate analysis, more complex recognition processes and a greater variety of behavioral reactions.
CONCLUSION (finally!). The dog's intelligence is closest to man (let's also take into account the developed interactions with humans in joint activities, which none of the three remaining animals have). The rest are smart, each in their own way.
IN ANY CASE, EVERY ANIMALS IS EXACTLY AS SMART AS ITS LIFESTYLE REQUIRES IT!
Sorry, I forgot about the monkey!
Monkeys are very, very diverse in size, lifestyle and behavior, as well as social structures. But even if we take those closest to humans in biological terms (for example, chimpanzees), they still do not have such a variety of activities as humans and EVEN dogs. I can talk a lot about this, but here I will only mention the absence or extremely weak development of many complex types of thinking (transformative, predictive, strategic and others) in monkeys. And with the same multivariate analysis, they are not doing well!
Please note: I am talking ABOUT THE SPECIES AS A WHOLE, and not about whether it is in principle possible to develop these types of thinking in an individual monkey. If you try, you can do as much as possible!
Consequently, the most apes They are significantly inferior to dogs in terms of similarity to human intelligence.
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Raven and greedy fox
Eskimo tale
The crow placed the yaranga on the shore of the Bering Sea. A fox was running past, saw the yaranga, stopped and began to praise the crow:
Oh, raven, how good you are, how beautiful you are!
The raven listens and his heart rejoices. - Live in my yaranga, sister! - invites. And that’s all the fox needs.
“I’ll be busy at home,” says the fox. - You will get food. - OK.
The raven made a spear, made a harpoon, and carved a pattern on them. He walked across the ice into the sea, caught a seal, and returned home. The fox saw it: - Did he take it away or did he get it himself? - Myself. The fox praises the raven, he can't boast enough.
They sat down to eat. The greedy fox thinks: “How did he catch a seal? I'll go get it myself. Then I won’t give the crow a single piece!”
At night, she slowly took a harpoon and a spear and went to the sea in the footsteps of the raven.
He sees a seal emerge between the ice floes. But the fox doesn’t know what to do first: throw a harpoon or throw a spear? She threw a harpoon and missed. The seal hid under the ice. The fox threw a spear after him - the spear went into the water.
The fox got scared, ran home, and pretended that she had been sleeping all night.
In the morning the raven got ready to hunt. Asks the fox:
- Sister, where is the spear? Where did my harpoon go?
- How should I know, I don’t leave the yaranga.
What is hunting without a spear and harpoon? The raven began to think about how to get food. I decided to make a fishing rod.
He made a hole in the ice and lowered his fishing rod into the water. Suddenly something heavy clung to the hook. The raven dragged and dragged, and barely pulled it out. The Water Miracle itself appeared above the water. Everything is overgrown with mud and entangled with algae. All the algae were covered with fish. The raven collected fish from the algae. He threw the Water Miracle into the river.
The fox saw it and began to praise the raven. And she thinks: “How does he catch fish? Let me go catch it myself.”
At night I took a fishing rod and ran along the raven’s trail to the river. She lowered the fishing rod into the hole and sat and waited. Then something heavy caught the hook. The fox pulls and thinks: “I won’t give the crow even a fish’s tail.” I pulled out the Water Miracle!
The fox got scared and dropped the fishing rod. The Water Miracle sank to the bottom along with the fishing rod.
The fox ran home and lay down as if he had never gotten up.
In the morning the raven asks: “Who took the fishing rod?”
- Why don’t you let me sleep? - the fox answers. - Apparently, he lost it somewhere!
The raven thought and thought. Where to go now? I took a long belt and went into the tundra. I saw a large yaranga.
The raven came closer and looked through the chimney hole from above. A woman sits there, braiding and unraveling her braids.
Deer walk around her. A woman undoes her braids - the white deer go in one direction, and when she braids them - the deer go in the other direction. Yes, they are no longer white, but black.
What kind of miracle is this? He scratched his head and dropped a feather. A feather fell on a deer and it fell. The woman took it and threw it away. The crow picked up the deer, tied it with a belt, and dragged it home.
They began to eat the deer, and the fox kept thinking: “Where did he get the deer? Should I go there and hunt?”
The fox didn’t even wait for night. She took the belt, sneaked out of the yaranga, and followed the raven's trail.
I came to that yaranga and looked in. “I wish I could get all the deer for myself!” She trembled with greed and dropped her belt into the hole. The belt hit a deer and the deer fell.
The woman picked up the belt and left the yaranga:
- Oh, that’s why my deer began to disappear! - and let’s woo the fox with that belt. She barely ran away from her. He goes home, and a crow meets him.
- How come, fox, you said you don’t leave the yaranga?
It was then that he realized who was ruining his hunt.
- Ugh! - he says and chased the fox away.