From world-renowned biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal comes this groundbreaking focus on animal intelligence destined to become a classic.

What separates your brain from an animal’s? Maybe you think it’s your capability to style tools, your feeling of self, or your grasp of past and potential?all traits which have helped us define ourselves as the planet’s preeminent species. But in recent decades, these promises have already been eroded-or even disproved outright-by a revolution in the study of pet about Are We Wise Enough to learn How Smart Pets Are? cognition.

Take just how octopuses make use of coconut shells as tools; elephants that classify humans by age group, gender, and vocabulary; or Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto College or university whose flash memory space sets that of humans to shame. Based on research involving crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and of course chimpanzees and bonobos, Frans de Waal explores both scope as well as the depth of pet intelligence. He gives a firsthand account of how research has stood traditional behaviorism on its mind by revealing how smart animals actually are-and how we’ve underestimated their capabilities for too long.

People often assume a cognitive ladder, from decrease to raised forms, with our own intelligence at the top. But what if it is similar to a bush, with cognition taking different, often matchless, forms? Would you presume yourself dumber when compared to a squirrel because you’re much less adept at recalling the places of a huge selection of buried acorns? Or would you judge your understanding of your surroundings as more advanced than that of a echolocating bat?

De Waal reviews the rise and fall from the mechanistic view of pets and opens our minds to the idea that animal thoughts are more intricate and organic than we have assumed. De Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink all you thought you understood about pet?and human?intelligence.