Animal Wise Book By Virginia Morell! Trivia Quiz

Explanation
Some ants are considered to be teachers because they sacrifice their own well-being in order to teach other ants in their colonies.

 

Photo of painted rock ant workers (Temnothorax albipennis) Photo Credit: Nigel R. Franks (copyright), University of Bristol

Explanation
These fish can learn to shoot water at difficult targets by visualizing themselves making the shot. This would be the equivalent of watching Kobe Bryant dunk a basketball a hundred times and being able to do it yourself afterward!


Photo Credit: Tanja Fuchsberger and Stefan Schuster.

Explanation
Some captive parrots do not simply mimic their owners’ words, but they have the ability to understand spoken words and can use these to communicate their basic understanding of the world.



Alex the Grey Parrot. Photo Credit: Irene Pepperberg.

Explanation
Several studies have shown that these birds possess the ability to create different types of tools from available resources. For example, crows can bend straight wires into hooks to get at food, and rooks have demonstrated a basic understanding of physics by employing the principles of water displacement to better access food.



Betty using the tool she invented and made to fetch a pail of meat!
Photo Credit: Animal Behaviour Research Group, Oxford.

Explanation
In the past, researchers believed that fish had very simple brains. However, new studies have found that fish not only feel pain but also can suffer, which indicates a psychological process.


Photo Credit: Gürkan Sengün / CC -BY -SA-3.0.

Explanation
These birds have calls that serve as names, and can articulate their own names as well as others’. This has led researchers to believe that they may have something like conversations with one another.



Photo Credit: Karl Berg

Explanation
Despite their short life span, rats can actually laugh and recognize playtime. Their need to play shows that this trait may be a primal necessity of many animals.


Photo Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Argument.

Explanation
These highly social and family-oriented animals can recognize their own dead and even bury their family members (there have been reports of elephants doing this to human bodies as well). Elephants have also been seen grieving silently over the bodies of their clan members. Chimpanzees, blue jays, and pandas, as well as many other species, also grieve for their dead.



Photo Credit: Virginia Morell.

Explanation
Dolphins’ ability to recognize themselves means they are self-aware, and understand the concepts of “self” and “others.” The ability to distinguish oneself from others is thought to be linked to empathy – to understanding that another individual may be hurt, even if you are not. It may be why dolphins have sometimes protected the lives of humans when in danger. Unrelated dolphins also cooperate on behalf of one another, a behavior rarely seen in the animal kingdom. All the great apes—as well as elephants and magpies—also recognize themselves in mirrors.

Photo Credit: Richard Connor, The Dolphin Project.

Explanation
Studies have shown that in some tests, these primates can hold onto a short term memory far longer than humans can. In addition, chimpanzees can learn their cultural traditions through observation and spread these traditions to other populations.



Ayumu solving a memory test.
Photo Credit: Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Kyoto Primate Research Institute.

Explanation
Because of the close relationships between dogs and humans over a long period of time, domestic dogs have developed the ability to connect nonverbally with humans and have a deep desire to work with us. Studies have shown that some dogs can hear a word once or twice and know that the word stands for something.



Photo Credit: Michael McRae.