Episode 1 Super Smart Animals

For centuries the thought that animals could talk,

solve problems...

Aw, she's got it.

..even feel emotion, was the stuff of fiction.

But all that's changing.

I'm Liz Bonnin, a scientist who's been travelling the world,

meeting the planet's smartest animals.

From skateboarding dogs,

to chimp geniuses.

I've discovered cutting-edge research...

This is ridiculous.

..that reveals animals are much more intelligent than we think.

But how smart are they?

Prepare to be astonished...

Ha-ha! Amazing.

..entertained...

He wants to chase and tickle with you now.

I want to chase and tickle with you too.

Did you see that?

..and even outwitted...

Ha ha!

..by some of the world's greatest animal minds.

'Einstein. We like Einstein. Einstein likes you too!'

Wherever you live, whether it's the frozen Antarctic...

..the baking desert...

..or the deepest ocean,

life can be a huge struggle.

How do animals deal with the problems they face?

Some have evolved extraordinary physical solutions,

over millions of years.

But others use their brains.

In the last few years, scientists have made an incredible discovery.

An animal that can beat us in an intelligence test.

I didn't think it was possible.

Until I came here. Home to some of the smartest animals in the world.

But it's not the jungle...

..it's Japan.

Kyoto University is home to world-beating experts

in numbers and memory.

And I don't mean the scientists.

I'm talking about the chimps.

Among them could be the world's greatest animal mind.

A chimp child genius.

His name is Ayumu.

He was born at the University, where he's studied ever since.

In this test, he's already mastered the order of numbers.

Not bad for a chimp.

But I've heard he's capable of much more.

At five years of age, Ayumu had already outclassed the very

scientists who had set him his intelligence tasks.

And now, apparently, at 11,

he's performing feats of memory that humans simply find impossible.

And here's the test at which he excels.

You've got a few seconds to commit these numbers to

memory before they're covered up.

The challenge is to remember where those numbers are

and then recall them in the right order.

Are you ready?

It's definitely not easy,

but just watch Ayumu.

He's memorising those numbers in less than half a second.

That is really impressive.

He is fast and there is no way he is doing this by accident.

I mean to stumble across the right answer he'd have

one in 362,000 chance of getting it right.

It looks absolutely effortless.

Ayumu's skills are special.

But in the wild, animals are also proving

they're much more intelligent than we ever thought.

I've come to Alaska, to find one of the biggest brains on the planet.

Any minute now they're going to hit the surface.

Turn your head.

Oh!

Humpback whales.

Here in Alaska, just a small group of them

use their brains to catch fish in a way seen nowhere else on Earth.

In just a few weeks, they'll set off on a 3,000-mile trip

to their breeding grounds.

But to survive the journey, every one of these 30-tonne mammals

needs to catch around a million fish.

And catching that much food, takes brains and teamwork.

These guys could never catch so many fish on their own.

They've got to work together.

And to be able to work together, you've got to use your intelligence.

But it's not just working as a team that makes these animals so special.

Off they go.

One by one.

It's what they're all making when they're down there.

Together they dive down.

One whale circles the prey,

letting out a chain of bubbles from its blowhole, in a wide arc.

Another whale swims below the fish,

frightening the prey upwards with a feeding call.

With this circular wall of bubbles,

the whales have essentially made a fishing net out of thin air.

This right here...

..is one of the most impressive tool-using social groups

on the planet.

Believe it or not, the bubble net is actually a very effective tool.

And it's only by using it that each of these humpback whales

can catch almost half a tonne of fish every day.

That's what happens when you put your mind to it.

Scientists once believed that using tools set humans

apart from other animals.

But we're not as special as we thought.

Chimps were first spotted using tools in the 1960s,

but since then we've noticed animal tool-users all over the world.

These boxer crabs pick up poisonous anemones,

waving them to scare off attackers.

Finches in the Galapagos use sticks to winkle grubs from rotting wood.

And sea otters in America crack shells against stones

on their stomachs.

These animals are impressive but are they thinking things through,

or is it just instinct?

Can animals solve an unexpected problem

they haven't had generations to perfect?

To be able to do that, they'd need a blinding flash of inspiration...

..a Eureka moment.

These "Eureka" moments are incredibly important

to the scientists who study intelligence

because it shows that something much more complex is going on up here.

Now, I'm here to show you an animal that, like us,

might just be capable of these moments of true insight.

This is Leipzig zoo in Germany.

Scientists work closely with the apes here,

and are setting some deceptively simple experiments,

which prove that orang-utans can be as ingenious as humans.

In this challenge, a tasty peanut is placed at the bottom of a tube.

It's too far for fingers to reach,

and the tube is bolted securely to the bars.

They're just presented with a tube and a peanut.

They need to use their intelligence to figure it out.

To find out how humans approach the problem,

we set up a similar experiment for the visitors at the zoo.

There you go, free sweets up for grabs.

All you've got to do is get them out of the tube.

We placed everything needed within reach.

But not one human,

child or adult,

had a Eureka moment.

So what happened the first time this orang-utan, Dakana,

and her baby, were given this challenge?

In a moment of genius Dakana takes water from her drinking fountain

and uses it, to float the peanut to within reach.

One after another almost every orang-utan here

was able to solve this problem by themselves.

Result! She gets the peanut.

Nobody's ever shown orang-utans how to do this.

You know, if you raise the level of something using water,

not even a solid tool, but a liquid tool, you can get your food reward.

They figured this out by themselves.

That's amazing.

How do animals become so good at solving unexpected problems?

It helps to be able to think into the future,

and to plan ahead.

And living in the grounds of a Hawaiian hotel

is an animal that looks like he can.

A night heron. The staff call him Hank.

His home is an all-inclusive resort,

where food is literally thrown at you.

Hank often loses out to the larger swans.

But when he finally grabs some food,

he does something completely unexpected.

He doesn't eat it.

But instead, appears to have a plan.

Hank takes the bread.

He places it in the water...

..and he waits.

He could eat it at any time.

But he holds out for more.

Two fish, in a single mouthful.

Planning ahead certainly pays off.

And Hank has learned how valuable his bait is.

There's no point wasting it on fish too big for him to eat.

So, he takes it out of harm's way.

There's increasing evidence that some animals can plan ahead,

which makes them fantastic problem-solvers.

But it takes time to build up the knowledge that you need,

and a simple experiment can demonstrate how animals learn.

Floating in this tube is a little red token.

And the challenge is to get it out.

Now, the tube is too narrow for your hand to fit in,

but there are things that can help.

Like these yellow balls, that are actually quite heavy,

and these blue ones that are light as a feather.

So, how will children cope with this test?

This five year old throws everything in.

She's been told she can use the balls and she does,

all of them.

But as they get older, kids experiment.

This six-year-old tries a few of each

before settling on the heavy ones.

She notices that only those that sink raise the water level.

And at seven, this child knows enough about floating

and sinking to solve the problem in her head before she's even started.

These kids, with know-how, never make a wrong choice.

But it's only through trial and error,

that we get the knowledge we need to eventually solve new problems.

And that comes with experience .

To find out if other animals learn in the same way, I'm going to

give the same experiment to a completely different species.

An animal that belongs to a group of birds so smart,

they've even been called "feathered apes".

This is a jay.

A member of the crow family studied here at Cambridge University.

Like the children, it's worked out that dropping

stones into the water can raise the level,

so it can reach a tasty worm.

But what happens when it's given the same experiment as the children?

We know that stones will raise the water level,

and floating cork won't.

But does the jay?

The jay starts with a sinking stone...

..but then uses a cork.

What happens next is crucial.

Has the jay learned from its mistake?

It has.

After using one piece of useless cork it went on to use only stones.

The jay solves the problem in the same way children do,

by noticing what brings the food closer through trial and error.

Studies show that these birds perform at the same level

as a seven-year-old child.

Got it!

In the wild, it's experimenting like this which gives animals

an opportunity to learn.

But to learn a lot, animals need something else.

The time to experiment.

This is Venice Beach, Los Angeles.

And this is Tillman.

Tillman is an animal with every basic need catered for.

Which means he has a lot of free time on his hands.

Mix that with his puppy-like enthusiasm,

and you have a powerful combination for learning.

And that has resulted in a unique talent.

It took us 200,000 years after the dawn of humanity

before we realised wheels might be a good idea.

Tillman's Eureka moment came in minutes.

Tillman may look like a trained dog doing tricks,

but he was never taught to do this.

There's no treats involved, it's just a passion that he has.

The faster he goes the happier he is.

Tillman has used his free time to master something completely alien

to the animal world,

in the blink of an evolutionary eye.

He invents new moves and he does things that blow my mind

every time I take him out practising.

The important point here is that what's true for Tillman,

also applies to animals in the wild.

Those that live long lives

and take longer to grow up have more time to learn...

..and get smarter.

The people that think he's not intelligent are out of their mind.

You can't be a stupid dog and figure that out.

Having time on your hands to experiment gives animals

an opportunity to learn.

But it takes one more thing to turn experiences into knowledge.

If you can't remember what you've done, you haven't learned a thing.

Memory is key.

And one animal can show us how important memory is.

Nearly half a million pigeons served in our two world wars, carrying

vital messages, when other forms of communication proved impossible.

-ARCHIVE:

-'In a remarkably short time the bird returns with

'its message to the home loft.'

From deep behind enemy lines.

From downed aircrews needing rescue.

'..Real wings have come to the aid of mechanical ones.'

Braving all weathers, and enemy fire, these birds struggled home.

A carrier pigeon by the name of GI Joe saved

units of the 56th London Division.

They even earned medals for their bravery.

And for all that, to some folk, he's still just a pigeon.

They may be just pigeons,

but their navigating skills saved thousands of lives.

But no-one knew exactly how they did it.

70 years on, science is still unravelling the mystery.

These pigeons are preparing for the biggest mental challenge of their lives.

Four months ago, they hadn't even hatched.

But today, they're competitors in one of Britain's most prestigious

pigeon races.

They're released 200 miles from home,

from a place they've never seen.

But the best bird brain will find its way back in just a few hours.

Winning its owner a £20,000 prize.

Everyone seems to have a theory on how they do it.

Some say related to the sun.

Some sort of magnet in their heads, summat like that, is that it, or what? We don't know.

I don't think anybody will ever know

and that is the beauty of the sport, really.

I were nine-year-old when I had me first one, and I knows

as much about them now as I did then.

For a slightly more scientific explanation,

we've enlisted the help of this man, Jeremy Davis.

He raised every pigeon in the race, on behalf of the owners.

Jeremy teamed up with scientists from Oxford University

and began to train the newly-fledged chicks 12 weeks ago.

And the researchers recorded

the young pigeons' very first training flight.

The tracker is getting a...getting the position once every second.

It tells us exactly where the pigeons go on their entire flight home.

It's the first time they've had to find their way home.

But from here they can practically see where they live.

It's a straight five miles that should take less than 10 minutes.

So why, when they released one pigeon, did its route home

look like this?

It's clear it had no idea where it was going.

It didn't fly five miles, it flew 40.

What this proves is that navigation doesn't come naturally to pigeons.

It's something they have to learn.

And it's Jeremy's job to help.

He can't fly the race for them,

but he can give them the opportunities to learn.

Over the next 12 weeks, he releases them further from home.

And, like a proud father, waits for their return.

But has all his efforts turned those hopeless new recruits

into the navigating heroes that once saved lives?

With just a few days to go before the big race,

there's time for one last training flight.

Our experts from Oxford return, to attach their GPS trackers.

And Jeremy gives the birds a final once over.

BEEPING

Physically, they're perfect.

But are they ready mentally?

It's only when the data's downloaded that they'll know what,

if anything, they've learnt.

From their launch point, home is 30 miles due south.

Jeremy's pigeons confidently head off...

..in the wrong direction.

But they know what they're doing.

They fly to the nearest town.

Follow a road and river to a roundabout.

And over a campsite, whose rows of caravans are visible for miles.

They've used their training flights to map the area

and memorise it.

And with that mental map they can follow these obvious landmarks

all the way home.

It's thanks to memory that these pigeons are ready for race day.

When they're far from home, pigeons do have other tricks to help them.

They use the sun, magnetic fields,

and even smell.

But in the crucial closing moments of a race, when accuracy is

everything, memory helps a pigeon win a £20,000 prize.

WHISTLES

-And the winner is...

-Gribbles Glen and Cooper.

Can you believe that!

Memory is what's turned the learning opportunities Jeremy gave

the pigeons into real know-how.

We've seen how animals can use tools.

Solve problems with a flash of inspiration.

And plan ahead.

We've also seen how they learn, by having the time

and enthusiasm to try things out.

And how a great memory can turn all that experience into know-how.

But you do need another ingredient to make you really smart,

something that Einstein himself said was more important

than knowledge, and that's imagination.

By being creative, you can put everything that you've learnt

into practice.

Creativity is an important part of being human.

But no-one believed it was a skill we shared with other animals.

Until, we began to study dolphins.

Dolphins here in Honduras have been taught signals for leaps,

somersaults and other acrobatics.

OK, here we go, ready...

Go, go, go!

Yes!

Oh, that was a long one!

These animals obviously understand what they're being asked to do,

but how can we tell they're not just trained animals performing tricks?

You can train an animal to do almost anything.

But how do you test for something like creativity?

Well, there's another sign these dolphins respond to,

which refers to a much more complicated concept.

The trainers could have picked any gesture to symbolise it.

But they thought this was appropriate for what

they hoped to reveal.

I'm being deadly serious.

This is a very special sign, because it means "create",

and when the dolphins see it, they've got to

use their imagination and come up with an original behaviour.

OK, you guys ready?

This signal was a scientific breakthrough.

Because it allowed scientists to measure something animals

weren't meant to have,

creativity.

Oh, Ronnie!

'This is Ronnie.

'When he sees this sign he has to dream up his own routine.'

OK, here we go.

'It could be something he's learned or something entirely new.

'But crucially, he has to be creative,

'and come up with something different every single time.'

That's more like it, you're getting more creative.

'But dolphins can do even more.'

These two are part of a creative team.

Now slow down.

Head trainer Terri

gives the command to get creative...together.

Somehow, between them, they decide what they're going to do.

And they stay synchronised.

No-one knows how they do this.

It's something they were never trained to do.

WHISTLE

Very good.

In the wild, creativity is a talent that allows animals to

put on much more than a good show.

Once you've got the know-how, creativity is the extra ingredient

you need to become a fantastic problem-solver.

And floating just off the Canadian coast

is an animal that can show us how.

Here he is.

Steve, a crab fisherman.

The basics are simple.

Put some bait in a pot.

Let it sink.

Sit back.

And wait for crabs to wander in.

Steve knows that most crustaceans lack common sense.

Once inside the trap they can't get out.

The exit is obvious enough to us,

but some animals just aren't born with much in the way of brains.

Which explains why the sea floor here looks like a crab graveyard.

This cave is home to a much more creative crab fisherman than Steve.

The animal living here shouldn't really be a problem.

Its closest relatives are slugs, snails and clams.

It's a giant Pacific octopus.

An animal with one huge advantage.

An enormous brain.

In fact, two thirds of its brain cells, or neurons,

extend into its tentacles.

Plan A is to smother the prey.

With the metal trap in the way, it's not too successful.

But that huge brain helps the octopus to get creative

and to think up a dramatically different strategy.

Once inside, it's an easy meal.

But it could be its last.

Breaking in was easy.

But the octopus can do something crabs find impossible.

A sure sign that an octopus has struck.

A trail of empty shells...

..and a frustrated fisherman.

What can I say?

These creative, problem-solving skills

set octopus apart from all other invertebrates.

It's the reason they can take advantage of new opportunities,

and the challenges that we create for them.

And there's new evidence that the more challenges animals face,

the more intelligent they become.

Here in Nevada, one of America's most common birds is teaching us

that the harder life is, the better it is for their brains.

BIRDSONG

This is it - the mountain chickadee.

In the USA, you're never far from a chickadee.

They look the same wherever you go.

But when researchers studied chickadees across the States,

they found that different habitats

result in varying levels of intelligence.

These harsh environments can in fact produce smarter chickadees.

And this simple challenge can prove the point.

Under every one of these glass discs is a tasty grub.

You can see them, but you can only reach them by removing the glass.

Competing, two identical-looking black-capped chickadees.

They were raised together in captivity,

but their families came from very different places.

On the left, a contender from Kansas, the lap of chickadee luxury.

A pleasant climate with plenty of food.

On the right, a bird from the north.

Battered by blizzards,

his family suffered for generations in icy Alaska.

The clock is ticking.

Who will get the highest score?

No contest. The southern softy doesn't even know where to start.

But to the bird whose family faced the harsh environment of Alaska,

working out how to remove a piece of glass presents no problem at all.

It's a simple task completely beyond the southern bird.

The birds have inherited these skills from their families.

It's in their DNA.

And chickadee brains are bigger and better because of

the challenging environments they live in.

This opens up an intriguing possibility.

If your environment can make you smarter,

animals may have the potential for even greater intelligence,

given the right circumstances.

We educate our children. What would we discover if we educated animals?

"MASTERMIND" THEME MUSIC

APPLAUSE

And our next contender, please.

Goldie, the goldfish, you have one minute on animal intelligence, starting...now.

Which animal has the largest brain of any animal, living or extinct?

Sperm whale, correct.

Which of these flags represents the country of Ivan Pavlov, whose

research into the gastric function of dogs

led him to develop the concept of the conditioned reflex?

Yes, that is the modern Russian flag.

Observations made by Charles Darwin onboard HMS Beagle helped formulate...

BUZZER

I've started so I'll finish. Darwin's place onboard was questioned by the captain,

who was troubled by which part of Darwin's body?

Any ideas?

Correct, it was Darwin's nose, the shape of which

he believed indicated "a lack of energy and determination".

APPLAUSE

So is Goldie really a mastermind?

Well, no.

We taught him to follow the food in this feeding wand.

There you go. But teaching him

has revealed something more about his mind.

People think goldfish have only got a three-second memory,

but even learning this simple association proves that it's

got to be longer than that.

So what else can we learn about animals in this way?

You can train them to do just about anything,

but can it reveal more about their intelligence?

What hidden abilities could we uncover if we educated animals?

We've seen how they use their brains to solve problems in the wild,

but are they capable of more?

Here in Santa Cruz, California, one animal is surprising scientists

by mastering skills you'd expect to find only in human children.

You see who's here?

This is Ronan - a sea lion pup who's about to play a game.

She'll be shown two pictures.

Choosing the correct one wins her a fish.

But at this stage, she doesn't know the rules.

OK, here we go.

She's gone for the truck.

'Right first time, but what's the rule?

'Go for the truck, or the picture that's always on the left?'

This is where it gets interesting.

'She needs to use trial and error

'and memory to work out a winning strategy.'

Ronan's not happy.

How are you supposed to know the rules of the game if nobody tells you the rules to start with?

This is what Ronan's battling with here.

She has to figure out the rules by herself.

I think it was supposed to be stick with the truck.

You can do it Ronan, come on.

OK, OK.

Yes, good girl!

Come on.

Oh, she's go it. She's got it.

'Ronan's using her intelligence to solve child-like puzzles

'she'd never encounter in the wild.'

And another sea lion here is using the same skills to master

something far more advanced.

Basic numbers and the entire alphabet.

This is Rio.

She's been surprising scientists for 17 years.

Rio!

And a simple game can put her knowledge to the test.

This is her task.

A central door slides up, revealing a symbol.

Rio has to decide whether it's a number or a letter.

Seconds later, two new symbols are revealed.

Which one matches the centre one?

Rio has to run through every symbol

she's learned through trial and error,

to find a mental match.

Can she do it?

Of course she can.

This looks easy to us, but remember, Rio is a sea lion.

This is much more advanced than Ronan's task,

because the right answer isn't a particular symbol,

it could be any one of 26 letters or 10 numbers.

What I found most fascinating about all of this is how much Rio

had to learn to even get to this stage.

She had to learn all these arbitrary symbols, which belonged in certain groups.

Letters together, numbers together, things that we take for granted.

She has to call upon all the things she's learned before,

and then recombine that learning in a novel task.

She has to think about it.

It was only by educating Rio that scientists revealed

she was more than a trained animal performing tricks.

Here was a sea lion that could do something that would tax

a four-year-old child.

Given enough time, what else could animals learn?

Irene Pepperberg is a scientist who spent 25 years teaching

just one animal.

Well, thank you so much for having me here

and thank you for being here to support the foundation.

She's revealed that animals can learn more than letters and numbers.

And are capable of many skills we see in human children.

To prove an idea this big,

Irene collaborated with another highly-respected mind.

It was after about that sort of 25-year mark in a sense that he

had really begun to put everything together.

And then he died.

His death was a loss to science, and made headlines around the world.

Three articles in the New York Times,

an obituary in the Economist.

This is, this is not something small.

There's no doubt that her research partner was special.

But he was also a parrot.

Alex.

It's hard to find out what animals know.

But because Irene taught Alex to talk, she could ask him.

What matter?

Paper.

-Paper, good boy, that's right.

-Want a nut.

Alex was a parrot capable of much more than parroting.

-Wool.

-Wool. Very good boy.

Alex changed the way we think about animal intelligence,

but it was only through teaching him that Irene could reveal exactly what he was capable of.

'I've come here to meet Irene's latest pupil,

'and Alex's protege, Griffin.'

Hello, Griffin.

Good parrot.

'And I want to find out how Irene teaches him, and what he knows.'

So it's, listen.

SHE SNAPS HER FINGERS

How many?

Five!

Five. That's right, you get a five.

'Irene teaches parrots, in the same way you'd teach toddlers.'

Five.

-Yes, five!

-Five.

'Repeat everything, with a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm. But it works.'

Most of the time.

'It was time to find out what Griffin knew.'

He can identify objects.

-What matter?

-Rock, rock.

Rock, that's right. Good boy.

'What they're made of.'

Wool, wool.

Good birdie.

-'Their shape.'

-Griffin, what shape?

-Corner, corner, corner.

-That's right.

'And their colour.'

Yellow.

Yes, what colour, Griffin?

-Green.

-Yes!

-Orange.

-Yes.

'He knows his numbers.'

How many?

One.

Awesome.

He might tell you what sound this is. Ask him what sound.

Really?

'He's also learning to identify letters.'

What sound, Griffin? What sound?

'And to sound them out.'

'Ssss.'

-That's right.

-Nut.

Yes, you can have another nut, OK.

'A good education brings out the best in both people and parrots.'

Teaching animals to communicate with us can tell us

so much about the inner workings of their minds.

And it's very clear that these animals can think for themselves.

But we would never have known that had it not

been for the dedication of Irene and how she taught these parrots.

Griffin has learned a lot, but Alex really excelled.

And what's this?

Key.

-Key is right. Say better.

-Key.

Good parrot.

He could do everything Griffin does, and much more.

He didn't just describe objects,

but he understood concepts like same and different.

Tell me what's different?

Colour.

Good parrot. You're right.

Different colour.

All right now, look, tell me, what colour bigger? What colour bigger?

Green.

Green. Good boy.

Tell me how many yellow wool?

And he had to study very hard, so he could answer more complex questions.

Try again.

Two.

Two yellow wool. Very good. Now how many green block?

Very good telling me the yellow wool. Now how many green block?

-Four.

-Good boy!

This was no trick.

Alex was a bird that could use human language

o answer questions that would stump a pre-school child.

But what's the limit?

Could an animal ever beat a human adult in an intelligence test?

This notion might seem impossible, but in the last 50 years,

we've discovered a lot of impossible things going on in animal minds.

They use tools, solve problems with a flash of inspiration,

and they plan ahead.

They learn like us

by finding the time and enthusiasm to discover how the world works.

And by having an incredible memory to turn those experiences

into knowledge.

They can even get creative

and learn things we teach our own children.

But beating us in an intelligence test?

I didn't think that was possible. Until I came to Japan.

At the start of the programme we met a very special chimp

called Ayumu.

He can remember the position of nine numbers in less than half a second.

But how did he get to be so smart?

Ayumu comes from a long line of intelligent apes.

HE MAKES CHIMP NOISES

And has a fantastic teacher.

Professor Matsuzawa has worked with Ai, Ayumu's mother,

for over 30 years.

Together they started this ground-breaking research.

The professor has taught mother and son the Japanese symbols

for colour, and the very beginnings of basic maths.

But it's Ai's son Ayumu, that's turned out to be the real genius,

especially when it comes to numbers and memory.

But could he beat an adult human?

I've never been one to turn down a challenge so,

I'm going to try the very same intelligence test.

I'm going head-to-head with Ayumu.

Human mind against chimp mind.

How hard could it be?

All I've got now once I press that little circle is 0.43 of a second

to remember where exactly the numbers are before they disappear behind squares.

Yeah...this should be interesting.

Think about nothing, relax, don't focus.

These numbers are being displayed for less than half a second.

That's barely enough time for my eyes to scan the screen.

BUZZER

BUZZER

Remembering five numbers was hard enough,

but this is entry-level stuff.

BUZZER

OK, so now for an even more interesting experience.

I'm going to try and do exactly the same thing,

but there won't be five numbers, but nine numbers.

Almost twice the numbers to remember in the same amount of time.

In ten attempts I got one right.

It was all or nothing.

I asked the Professor to test me to Ayumu's level.

What was this chimp genius meant to be capable of?

Right, then, as if that wasn't difficult enough

I am now going to attempt what no other human has attempted before.

The same test,

except that the numbers only flash up for 0.06 of a second.

60 milliseconds.

The entire reputation of the human race rests on my shoulders

right now.

Here goes.

You've got to be kidding.

BUZZER

This is unbelievable. They flash up

for such a short amount of time

I can't even register one single number.

This is bonkers.

No idea.

It was time to meet the master.

Was he really capable of a mental feat that humans find impossible?

60 milliseconds.

That's not even the blink of an eye.

But Ayumu takes it all in.

When this skill was first discovered some scientists said that it was down to practice.

But that theory has been completely blown out of the water,

when you consider how short a time those numbers are flashed up for.

It's impossible to do it, never mind get better at it with practice,

which just goes to show how special this skill is in Ayumu.

Now that is incredible.

Take a bow, Ayumu. You are a true animal Einstein.

We've met some incredible animal minds.

But all that's child's play,

compared to one huge challenge that remains.

Learning how to deal with every other animal on the planet.

Next time,

we'll discover why it takes brains to thrive in the social world.

Can animals deceive others? Do they have feelings?

And is it possible for us

to have an actual conversation with another species?

He wants to chase and tickle with you now.

I want to chase and tickle with you too!

Next time, we meet meerkat teachers in scorpion school.

Spend time with emotional ocean giants.

And challenge Chaser.

Einstein.

A dog that knows over a thousand words.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd