What Are The Lions Mnifestations of Intelligence? Name Five?

Question

Name Five

Answer 1

Intelligence is a difficult thing to define, since so many species are so different. For example, if aliens who communicated largely by smell arrived on Earth, they would consider dogs much more intelligent than humans, since they have a much better sense of smell and could therefore understand them much better. However, there are behaviours seen in lions that humans can appreciate as being intelligent within our own framework. Here are five of these:

1. Lions with thorns stuck in their paws have been observed holding another thorn in their teeth and using it to extract the one in their paw. Any form of tool-use like this is considered intelligent behaviour.

2. Lions hunt co-operatively, working as a team. They do not all just charge in together - one or more will lie in wait, whilst others drive the prey into the trap. This clearly shows that they are thinking about what they are doing - formulating and executing a strategy for catching their prey.

3. A mother lion 'teaches' her cubs to hunt. She will bring them dead prey at first, and let them play with it, practicing the throat bite they will one day use to kill and so on. As they get older, she will bring them small live prey and allow them to chase and capture it for themselves. If it seems likely to escape, she will stop it, sometimes even deliberately injuring it so that the cubs have a better chance. The first few times she does this, she will perform the actual kill for them, but after this she will wait for them to make the kill themselves.

4. Lions can count, in a manner of speaking. If a lion hears three or fewer rivals roaring, it will roar back, announcing its ownership of its territory. If more than three rivals roar, it will keep quiet, showing that it knows it is too heavily outnumbered to prevail should a fight ensue.

5. Buffalo will attack lion cubs if they find them. Adult lions defend them not only by counter-attacking, but by luring the buffalo away from the cubs. They will dance about in front of the buffalo, encouraging it to charge them. When it does so, they will dodge, and then repeat the procedure, drawing the buffalo away from the vulnerable cubs.