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sh00p! I can tel bi da pikzls
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I would assume that the only thing exceptional about dogs is their eagerness to take contrived human IQ tests. Where a cat, dolphin or crow would just look you up and down and walk off, a dog will be all “oh boy a test! I LOVE doing whatever that is!”
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First scientists had to stop ranking people by skin color, skull shape, and by relative cultural metrics. Then they had to stop ranking the genders.
Now, scientists don’t get to rank humans at ALL.
Can we please still let them rank the animals? Geez.
What is science for if it’s not for dubiously affirming our biases?
At least we can all agree that mammals are way smarter than reptiles.
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w00t!
I found the radio piece about the counting spiders!
Portia is a cutie
And, damn; my recollection is appalling - it was 15months ago, not a few weeks …
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Cats, dogs, whatever…
Corvids is where it’s at.
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I just wish someone had provided a link to the actual paper. 
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Yeah, I think the real difference is not that dogs are smarter, but that they are naturally shaped to look to humans for guidance, Things like teaching them vocabularies is easier. Other animals are more like “yeah sure, Naked Ape, I got other stuff to think about.”
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There are flying spiders all over the place in Australia; they weave little parachutes of silk and use them to travel between mountaintops. If you camp in the Snowy Mountains during springtime there’s a constant stream of them floating overhead.
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The true intelligence of canines is demonstrated by the fact that they have successfully trained humans to do everything they are incapable of.
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When suitably motivated - say by a piece of sliced ham - our rescue cat has variously learned to sit, offer a paw, lie down, and jump through a hoop.
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I got my cat to look it up for me.
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Why so angry, Stophon?
Thanks! I couldn’t find it for some reason.
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Australia is horrifying.
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Plenty of flying spiders here in the UK, but they’re very small and they won’t kill you.
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They also included pigeons; who, I didn’t realise, are apparently “social hunters”.
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