Have you ever wondered if your dog recognizes itself when it looks in the mirror?
Spoiler alert: it probably doesn’t.
But animal intelligence is a strange and fascinating thing.
Some creatures we’ve written off as simple turn out to have capabilities that shouldn’t be possible given the size of their brain. Others that we’ve long assumed were intelligent turn out to be running almost entirely on instinct.
The animal kingdom is full of surprises in both directions — and before we get into them, one quick note: no animal on this list is truly “dumb.” If a species has managed to stick around this long, it probably figured something out!