We humans think we’re the bee’s knees don’t we? We’ve got language, music, art, cars, fridges, bank accounts. Essentially we’ve left all of the other planet’s creatures faltering on the starting line. Well, if that’s what you believe then it may have come as a surprise to see a chimp on last night’s Super Smart Animals solving a number-centred memory challenge that we oh-so-superior primates couldn’t even begin to do, and doing it so quickly and effortlessly that the chimp was suspected of having learnt it by rote.
Welcome to a world which of course has always been there, it’s just that we’re only now beginning to discover the fact. We met the boxer crabs who wave poisonous anemones to scare off predators, the herrings who use bread given to them by tourists as bait to catch fish, the LA dog that loves skateboarding and numerous other animals who have found new ways to navigate and exploit their world whether in captivity or in the wild.
Super Smart Animals was essentially Horizon-lite. In other words, there wasn’t too much science scaring the horses
Super Smart Animals was essentially Horizon-lite. In other words, there wasn’t too much science scaring the horses. Scientific and philosophical questions about the divide between intelligence and instinct were touched on, but only in the form of cute little experiments which demonstrated that animals could think on their feet or flippers when faced with challenges they wouldn’t face in the wild. But really the focus was on jumping to the next critter and continent as quickly as possible, for fear our attention might drift if things got too bogged down by analysis.
Although, to be fair, moving on quickly also had to be the nature of the beast – because there were a lot of beasts to cover. This business of how sentient our fellow Earth dwellers are is still relatively virgin territory. Thousands of years of religions insisting we distance ourselves from our more hirsute and aquatic relatives has left us disproportionately surprised to even see a parrot screech “pretty Polly”. But having said that, there were a couple of parrots featured but they weren’t just mimics. They’d leant to differentiate colours, shapes, textures etc, so that when asked about the particular characteristics of an object they could respond appropriately.
But perhaps it was the human animal we inadvertently learnt most about. On the one hand we were told that it was all the leisure time at the disposal of that skateboarding dog that prompted him to take up this hobby. Yet on the other hand we were told it was the lack of leisure time (the demands created by a harsh environment) that made one species of jay a more efficient problem solver than his counterpart with a cushier lifestyle. Make your mind up, humans! What this suggested was that we are still reluctant to just give credit where credit's due, insisting that external factors (even if they are contradictory) are needed to nudge our stick-in-the-mud ancestors into doing something remarkable.
Presenter Liz Bonnin didn’t have the BBC old-school gravitas of, say, David Attenborough, but she wasn’t just a smile on legs either
Presenter Liz Bonnin didn’t have the old-school BBC gravitas of, say, David Attenborough, but she wasn’t just a smile on legs either. Like the Blue Peter presenters of old, she was more than happy to get her hands dirty and body wet, all in the name of getting down with any creature great or small that had something extra going on upstairs. But her greatest asset was that she seemed genuinely thrilled to have the best job in the world. When she conversed with a bonobo ape using hundreds of symbols the ape had learnt, her enthusiasm for the task and instant rapport with the animal was touching. As was the moment she bubbled over with excitement on encountering humpback whales in Alaska who had gone out of their way to come up to the boat to say hello. She was also genuinely moved when they snorted their goodbyes.
But these two scenes occur tonight in part two - the better of the two programmes. Better because the focus moves to the languages we are discovering animals have already, rather than the ones we have imposed upon them. Yes, I know, you pretty much reached saturation point with big-budget BBC nature documentaries several years ago – enough with sumptuously shot footage of the marvels of our planet, I hear you cry. But trust me, you’ve seen nothing until you’ve seen a bonobo ape planning a picnic.
- Super Smart Animals part two is on BBC One tonight at 8pm