Bees recognise faces, birds remember thousands of places: what animal intelligence teaches us

Animal intelligence, far more complex than we think: from bees that recognise faces to birds that remember thousands of places.

Intelligence is not a single ability, nor an exclusive privilege of humans. Bees can distinguish faces even though they have fewer than a million neurons, small birds can perform counting tasks from the first days of life, while some bird species manage to remember thousands of places where they have hidden food, even after several months.

These are some of the examples showing that the animal world possesses extraordinary cognitive abilities.

For Giorgio Vallortigara, professor of neuroscience at the University of Trento and a researcher of the animal mind for about 40 years, understanding these abilities also helps us to better understand how the human mind works.

Vallortigara heads the Animal Cognition and Neuroscience laboratory at the University of Trento and will take part in the fifth edition of the Pianeta Terra festival, held in the Italian city of Lucca.

The event, directed by Stefano Mancuso and conceived by the publishing house Laterza, is dedicated this year to the theme of forms of intelligence.

His lecture, titled “The Intelligence of Animals”, aims to shed light on how mistakes, unpredictability and even a certain dose of inefficient behaviour can help organisms to learn, adapt and survive.

According to the researcher, intelligence is defined mainly as the ability to solve problems. This ability can be assessed in animals in a similar way to humans, by observing their behaviour and how they react when faced with obstacles.

One example is the situation in which an animal tries to reach food, but faces an obstacle it cannot overcome directly.

In that case, it must change its route and move temporarily away from the objective, before finding a way to reach it. Precisely the ability to overcome the immediate impulse and choose an alternative solution constitutes an expression of intelligence.

Vallortigara stresses that there is no universal intelligence capable of solving every kind of problem. On the contrary, evolution has created specialised abilities, adapted to the needs of each species.

Some animals have developed sophisticated mechanisms for orientation in space, others are able to recognise faces, while some possess the ability to evaluate quantities, distinguishing the number of prey, rivals or potential partners.

That these abilities function independently of one another is also demonstrated by clinical neurology. Damage limited to certain areas of the brain can cause the loss of a specific ability, without necessarily affecting other functions.

A person, for example, may lose the ability to recognise faces, while continuing to function normally in other respects.

These discoveries show that intelligence is a complex system of abilities, formed during evolution to respond to life’s different challenges.

The study of animals, consequently, not only helps us to understand their world, but also offers important data on how the human mind has developed and is organised.

What happens to an animal when it encounters a mistake or something unexpected?

The same thing that happens to us: it is surprised.

And that is precisely one of the techniques we use to explore the minds of those who cannot speak to us — namely, animals and small children.