What's the smartest terrestrial invertebrate? It seems every other category is pretty uncontroversial

What's the smartest terrestrial invertebrate? It seems every other category is pretty uncontroversial

Mammals - Primates (honorable mention to cetaceans)
Birds - Parrots (hon. mention corvids)
Reptiles - Crocodilians (hon. mention varanids)
Aquatic invertebrates - Cephalopods

Would it be formicids? They're impressive as a group but are individuals more intelligent than a predatory arachnid?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >formicids
    What are those?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Ants.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Crocodilians
    Huh? Crocodiles are smart? I always thought reptiles especially crocodiles were dumb, and snakes were the smartest reptiles. How do they do when compared with Cephalopods?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      They’re smart enough to recognise patterns extremely well and seem to have excellent memories, but it’s hard to study an animal that is intelligent but couldn’t care less about obeying you

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    For non-bony fish, it’s posited to be mantas surprisingly enough.
    For bony fish it’s probably a wrasse. I’d put cichlids up there for also frequently manipulating things with their mouths, but wrasse figure out how to tear apart sea urchins and small lion fish in the wild.
    Mormyrids apparently have the most brain power for bony fish due to having to dedicate it to electroreception.
    Jacks are also seemingly pretty smart, but they use it to be c**ts. That or they have a bunch of smart seeming behaviors. The babies will pilot fish around large predators and jellyfish for safety. Will partner with eel like predators for crevice hunting. Will stalk and kill steal the flushed prey of rock moving/ sand rummaging predators like seals to the point of near starvation even in food abundant areas. Will attempt to steal the shit out of diving equipment in some areas.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Raccoons are smarter than many primates. Bear intelligence is likely on par with monkeys as well, but is understudied

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Bear intelligence is likely on par with monkeys
      Bears are about as smart as a house cat. There isn't much pressure to be intelligent when you can literally one-shot a moose.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Humans are slightly less intelligent than large marine mammals.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >Some humans average 21bil cortex neurons
          >Some humans average 16bil cortex neurons
          That's a pretty big variability for a single species.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            cool it with the racism

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            really makes you think

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Fun fact.
            There are people who habe had half their brain removed and function normally and display normal levels of intelligence

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              There are always some issues with memory and loss of motor function with hemispherectomy patients but yes the amount of function retained is remarkable.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Cetaceans only have one hemisphere active at a time, so the cortex neuron count is effectively half that number.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Isn't that only true when they sleep?

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I forgot to mention fish but I think it's pretty clear that in general, it's sharks and some of the rays. For bony fishes it's likely some kind of cyprinid.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Some species of wrasse have been observed using hard rocks or coral to crack open shells
      That qualifies as tool use by some metrics

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      White Tip Reef Sharks hunt as a pack (which is pretty cool)

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Pufferfish (Tetraodontidae) are relatively smart. Ones kept in aquariums can recognize their owners and beg for food.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Some ants are way ahead of all non-humans on the civilization tree. They have already went through the agricultural revolution, something we did only like 13k years ago. Individuals are also self-aware and pass the mirror test.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Based, too bad they don't give a frick about us

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I'll say Paper wasp (Polistes dominula in particular)

    search for studies by Elizabeth Tibbets et al.

    They can
    - recognize and remember individual faces
    - display the ability to reason by transitive induction, which is just a step below actual logic

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >recognize and remember individual faces
      >scientist proved this by catching wasps and painting new facial markings on them and re-introduced them to the hive
      I want a grant for seeing what happens if you start painting bees like warhammer figures.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    the smartest spineless creature on land is without a doubt, OP himself.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Jumping spider. It remembers places.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      and yeah that was really what I was thinking of, I think ambush predators are probably pretty stupid in general but species that chase down prey are probably fairly intelligent similar to how, with the exception of pachyderms, basically all intelligent animals are carnivorous or omnivorous.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >basically all intelligent animals are carnivorous or omnivorous
        Or they consume things like fruit, nuts, and seeds. Look at parrots. Or great apes who do consume some meat, but its not very much of their overall diet.
        People figuring out how to cook and preserve food was just as important to allowing our brains to get bigger as was a more meat-based diet.
        It takes a lot of muscle and big jaws and teeth to have a life of eating that kind of food. If you can cook food to make it easier to chew and eat then you can shrink the jaw and muscle, and expand the brain at the same time. You can make certain inedible things edible by cooking them, as well as making certain nutrition more bio available, so you get more bang for your buck.
        Sterilizing the food and helping to reduce the parasites and bacteria into the gut means its healthier in general, and working better.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      not only remember places.

      they have object permanence.
      Can count 1, 2 and many,
      they can distinguish between biological and mechanical motion

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Jumping spider. It remembers places.
      Bees and ants are smarter. Insects have these smaller connected organs instead of brains, but they have a central pair of them for 'thinking' which is largest in bees/ants.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Bees and ants are smarter.
        No they are not. Jumping spiders are actual problem solvers.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This, and on top of that Portia if briars is shockingly intelligent for something so tiny

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Portia if briars
        Portia fimbriata*
        I fricking hate phone posting

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Do any of the cephalopods show intelligence besides octopus

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Cuttlefish also seem pretty intelligent, and squid, though much less studied, also seem somewhat intelligent, humbolt squid have been seen hunting cooperatively in a similar manner to some cetaceans. But more species of squid tend to live in deeper water and aren't observed nearly as much behaving naturally. Then you have giant squid, which might be fairly intelligent but we can't even find them to study them.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Reef cuttlefish are not only smart, but social and communicate with each other by using their arms as well as pulsing colors and patterns.
      They're also really good at mimicking their surroundings.
      There's a great video of some experiments they did where scientist would put them in tanks with different patterns to see how they would blend in to novel environments and they went full metal gear.

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