May 19, 2009 -- Mockingbirds may look pretty much alike to people, but they can tell us apart and are quick to react to folks they don't like.

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Despite cartoons you may have seen showing a straight line of fish emerging on land to become primates and then humans, evolution is not so linear.

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A male chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo planned hundreds of stone-throwing attacks on zoo visitors, according to researchers. Keepers at Furuvik Zoo found that the chimp collected and stored stones that he would later use as missiles.

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During the late 1800's a baboon was employed by a railroad as a signalman. The baboon also performed other tasks. Baboons are intelligent animals!

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Part 1: Do You Think Your Pet Is Intellegent?

How many stories have there been about pets doing incredible things? Is saving their owner from danger a sign of intelligence? It is a natural instinct of survival to protect their food source and/or caregiver.

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Subtle refinements in brain architecture, rather than large-scale alterations, make us smarter than other animals

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Research on animal intelligence always makes me wonder just how smart humans are. Consider the fruit-fly experiments described in Carl Zimmer's piece in the Science Times on Tuesday.

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There may never be another bird like Alex. The brainy African gray parrot, who died in September at age 31, had a grasp of numbers, colors, and even a very basic insight into the concept of 'zero' that challenged scientists' most fundamental assumptions about animal intelligence.

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"Want a nut!" Alex demanded. The interview was over. "Want a nut!" he repeated. "Nnn ... uh ... tuh." Dr. Pepperberg was flabbergasted. "Not only could you imagine him thinking, 'Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it for you?' " she said.

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This is one of the first videos made of Bibi the polyglot parrot. By the age of 1 year, she'd learned words in over 8 languages. (At age 1.5yrs, her vocabulary now includes over 20 languages.)

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The idea that animals other than humans can learn from one another and pass on local traditions has long been a matter of debate. Now, a new study reveals that some birds learn not only from each other, but also from their competitors.

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