We humans think a lot of ourselves, it seems. Many of us believe we are the most important beings in the Universe. The top of the food chain, and such.
But we’re too big for our britches, in my limited opinion.
There are many things that we thought made us uniquely human. But wait. We’re not all that.
Animals have some amazing traits that might surprise you. Those things that we thought only humans could do. But we were wrong.
• Knowledge-sharing.
Knowledge-sharing, especially from one generation to the next, puts us humans above the rest. It’s basically the definition of culture. But here is the thing. It’s also found in other species. For example, baboons teach each other the best foraging routes. Fledgling birds learn how to fly by watching their parents. And then there are the rats. They learn safe foods by smelling each other’s breath.
There are countless other examples. From fish, to chimpanzees, to turtles. Needless to say, as species go extinct, so do their cultures. Sadly.
• Weird trends
In the age of Social Media, human trends are getting weirder all the time. Eating Tide Pods? Dumping ice on ourselves to raise money? Holding our breath until we pass out? Yeah. Humans can have weird trends and stupid behavior. For sure.
But other animals can have weird trends, too, it seems.
Like those white-faced capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica. They exhibit a number of unusual traditions. For one, they smell each other’s fingers for no good reason. Maybe like us and encouraging others to smell the bad milk carton. “Here. Smell this.”
But those monkeys. Another thing they do is kind of like a game for them. They bite off a clump of another monkey’s fur and hold it in their mouth while the other tries to get it back. The thing is. They don’t do it forever. These traditions tend to be fleeting—usually lasting roughly a decade. Kind of like us. With bell bottoms. Or mullets. And these animal behaviors are also pretty localized, so trends seen in one group may not be in the next. They also serve no purpose in their survival.
• Fashion
Did I mention bell bottoms? In addition to weird behavioral trends, we also find fashion in animals.
Bearded vultures, whose feathers are white, apply make-up in the form of iron-rich soil. Like human fashions, this signifies status. With the vultures, the older, more dominant birds wear the most color.
Then there are the chimps who wear a single blade of grass in their ears. It started in 2010, when a chimpanzee in Zambia spontaneously stuck one in her ear and left it there. Despite it serving no apparent purpose—certainly no direct survival purpose—other chimps followed, then others, until four different groups were doing it.
• Drug use
Call the Betty Ford Clinic. Drug use is everywhere in the animal kingdom.
Jaguars in the Amazon will go out and find a certain vine that contains a drug used by humans to make ayahuasca (pronounced ‘eye-ah-WAH-ska’). Ayahuasca is a psychedelic.
And lemurs chew on narcotic millipedes.
And dolphins get high on pufferfish before floating upside down in a daze staring at their own reflections.
In fact, non-human animals like drugs so much they’re willing to put up with the downsides.
Spider monkeys will get drunk on fermented fruit. Then, they throw up and fall out of their trees.
Animals also use drugs to cope with bad moods. In one famous study, rats kept in small cages with nothing to do but be locked up were more likely to choose a sweetened morphine solution over water. Those rats ended up drinking themselves to death on the stuff.
Even fruit flies turn to booze if they don’t find a mate.
Some other behaviors we share with animals?
• Facial expressions
• Food preparation
• Senses of humor
• Complex languages (Koko the Gorilla’s humorous use of language also shows a grasp of complexity for one.)
And finally?
• Spirituality
According to Jane Goodall, chimps appear to feel awe. In the course of her research, she saw them swaying rhythmically to a waterfall and then sitting down to watch it. This of course has features of human spirituality, but it’s impossible to say it’s the same.
But more than that. We know that other animals ceremonialize death. Elephants perform parades when an elephant dies, with the corpse drawing not only its own herd but members of other herds, too. Interestingly, they stay close to their fallen even when a corpse attracts predators. It calls to mind the kind of courage that humans often draw from their faith, or convictions.
Dolphins do it, too. They stay with a loved one who has passed away for an indefinite amount of time.
Chimps show the same kind of reverence. When a baby dies, its mother will continue to care for it, carrying and grooming it for days, weeks, or even months afterward. She’ll only stop once the corpse has decayed beyond all recognition. Other apes, including gorillas, baboons, macaques, and lemurs, also have death rituals. So do birds; crows, jays, and others often gather in trees around their fallen, apparently to mourn.
I’ve gone on too long about this here. But it is really something, I think.
What a world we live in.
What a world.
If only we humans would see.
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For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.
— Douglas Adams
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The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.
— Mark Twain
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Wisdom and deep intelligence require an honest appreciation of mystery.
— Thomas W. Moore
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