Are sharks intelligent creatures?

Question

Are sharks intelligent creatures?

Answer 1

They are intelligent enough to have survived millions of years.

Answer 2

Are we intelligent creatures, compared to sharks?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...

Answer 3

Compared to what?

Compared to a jellyfish?  YES!

Compared to a crab? Yes

Compared to a dolphin? Probably not . . . .

Compared to a human?  No.

Most scientists think that sharks run mostly on instinct, meaning that they are not too intelligent.  but instinct makes them dangerous, because they're not smart enough to know when they are beaten, and will continue to fight until you kill them.

Answer 4

Yes they are intelligent creatures, they wouldn't have survived 500 million years  on big teeth alone...

Are they conscious as we know it? Maybe, they do have brains that are quite complex, and they have thoughts, and emotions.

No, they can't reason or rationalise, they are quite like angry, viscious, but cunning, bordering on twilightzone scary intelligent children.

Answer 5

I have read a few books about sharks and they are not as dumb as people make them out to be.  Some scientists think they might be on par with dogs when it comes to intelligence and problem solving.  Various tests have been performed and sharks have demonstrated that they can remember and figure out changes.  Sharks have also been observed in nature demonstrating intelligence.

http://www.elasmo-research.org/education...

http://www.nhm.org/research/fishes/shark...

Answer 6

No.  They are living machines.  They react to their environment and season changes.  Instinct is their primary driving mechanism.  No animal is intelligent.  If they were we humans would have been able to devise a test for animal intelligence.  It just simply not gonna happen.  Only humans are intelligent.  Intelligence has nothing to do with animal survival.  One again, only the human uses it's brain to survive.

Edit:  The answer suggesting sharks have "smarts"  because they can be trained is way off base.  It has been proven time and time again, that almost any animal can be trained when it comes to feeding them.  If that animal was indeed smart, it would retain the training.  But that is simply not the case.  I can site many many examples where animals were trained, then the training abandon, then return to the animal to see if they remembered the training.  It ALWAYS fails.  Even in chimpanzee.  Assuming an animal has smarts is just plain ridiculous and not supported by research.

Answer 7

They're intelligent enough to eat us!!

Answer 8

i dont think so

Answer 9

No;  They work strictly on sensory organs and instinct.

Answer 10

Of course they are, perhaps not all of the species, but considering there are over 350 species we ourselves would be stupid to think that some of them are not smart.

Nonetheless let me give you an example of proof that they are.  Most sharks in aquariums and zoos are target trained.  The keepers work with the sharks on various targets and what the animal has to do with the target.  A keeper can stick a colored target in the water, the shark will see it and respond.  Some might argue that such behavior is not "smarts" that it is just a learned behavior... BUT if a shark was stupid it would not be able to learn and remember such a behavior.  Thus we have smarts.

It is just one example... but trust me, many shark species are very smart.

Answer 11

Yeah they are but one with a draw back they cant swim backward and their body is not enough flexible to move left or right faster