The total number of neurons in crows (about 1.5 billion) is about the same as in some monkey species. But because they are more tightly packed, communication between the neurons seems to be better, and the overall intelligence of crows may be closer to that of Great Apes such as the gorilla.
A Swedish study shows that corvids – birds of or resembling the crow family – can be just as smart at certain tasks as chimpanzees, even though their brains are very much smaller. Scientists think the great apes are the smartest animals on the planet, second only to humans.
A crow is supposedly as smart as a 7-year-old.
Researchers have found that the kea parrot from New Zealand has powers of statistical analysis that were previously only seen in great apes. They may only be small, but it turns out that parrots are better at mathematics than monkeys and on a par with chimpanzees, a study has found.
The brain to body ratio of crows is equal to that of great apes and cetaceans, and just slightly lower than in humans. In some research tests, crows prove to be smarter than apes, pushing many in science to consider them second only to humans in intelligence.
Parrots and the corvid family of crows, ravens, and jays are considered the most intelligent of birds.
They are known to be intelligent—capable of using tools, recognizing human faces, and even understanding physics—and some researchers believe crows may rival apes for smarts.
For years, dolphins have been heralded as the smartest animals on Earth, second only to humans—though some would even contest that ranking. Aside from humans, dolphins have the greatest brain-to-body ratio among animal species, including primates.
CHIMPANZEES. RECKONED to be the most-intelligent animals on the planet, chimps can manipulate the environment and their surroundings to help themselves and their community. They can work out how to use things as tools to get things done faster, and they have outsmarted people many a time.
Among birds, crows and ravens (or corvids) are the most intelligent. They have the largest brains for body size; they're more like primates than birds. In fact, some people call them “flying monkeys”. The family Corvidae originated from a forest ancestor in the Australian fragment of Gondwana.
Pigs have the intelligence of a human toddler and are ranked as the fifth most intelligent animal in the world! In fact, pigs are more intelligent and trainable than any breed of dog. They learn their names in just two weeks and come when they're called.
Crows are considered the smartest of all birds for several reasons. Furthermore, it's the variety of things they can do that puts them over the top.
The American Crow, however, is just the smartest in a whole family of whip-smart birds. They're in the family Corvidae, which consists of ravens, rooks, jays, nutcrackers, magpies, jackdaws, choughs, and treepies.
Crows have been intertwined with mankind for thousands ofyears. They exhibit humanlike characteristics: They play, communicateand have the capacity to deceive. They're smarter than any cat andmost children.
Dolphins are often cited as the second smartest animals on Earth due to their relatively high brain-to-body size ratio, the capacity to show emotion, and impressive mimicry of the dumb apes who research them.
Chimpanzees. Chimps are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, so it's unsurprising they display intelligence similar to that of humans. Chimps fashion spears and other tools, display a wide range of emotions, and recognize themselves in a mirror.
Koalas. Koalas are not only extremely cute, they're smart, too! The marsupials know how to listen to their bodies and can dive into a deep sleep for an average of 22 hours a day. Koalas snack on eucalyptus leaves, which aren't high in nutrients—the abundant rest makes this diet possible.
Horses and Dogs are both intelligent animals, but they have different cognitive strengths. Horses excel in areas like navigational intelligence while dogs do better with social intelligence. Neither animal is smarter than the other, that's just what makes them unique!
Pigs are gentle creatures with surprising intelligence. Studies have found they're smarter than dogs and even 3-year-old children! In the wild, pigs form small groups that typically include a few sows and their piglets.
Gorillas are considered highly intelligent. A few individuals in captivity, such as Koko, have been taught a subset of sign language. Like the other great apes, gorillas can laugh, grieve, have "rich emotional lives", develop strong family bonds, make and use tools, and think about the past and future.
They are well-known for being among the smartest animals in the animal kingdom; yet, the more you learn about them, the more awestruck you will be by the depth of their brilliance. In fact, a study has found that crows' reasoning ability rivals that of seven-year-old humans.
Crows tend to have big brains compared to their body size, Brown says. In mammals, the bigger-brained are humans and dolphins; in birds, it's parrots and crows. And getting into the neuroscientific nitty gritty of it all, the part of the brain responsible for crow smarts is the “nidopallium caudolaterale”.