What Characteristics Do All Humans Have That Animals Don't

There are many similarities between humans and other animals that you may have noticed. Humans and animals both consume, sleep, think, and communicate. We are also similar in a lot of the ways our bodies work. Just we also have a lot of differences. Are there whatsoever differences that prepare humans apart, uniquely, from all other animals?

Some people call back that the main differences between humans other fauna species is our ability of complex reasoning, our use of complex language, our ability to solve difficult problems, and introspection (this means describing your own thoughts and feelings). Others besides feel that the ability for inventiveness or the feeling of joy or sorrow is uniquely human. Humans take a highly developed brain that allows u.s.a. to do many of these things. But are these things uniquely homo? First, allow's get into the fuzzy part of that question.

A baboon is existence given a mirror examination. Image by Moshe Blank via Wikimedia Commons.

There are a lot of things that humans think are truthful about animals and beast behavior, but some of these ideas are problematic. Sometimes, when we practise tests on brute behavior, nosotros use tests that apply to animals like humans, and nosotros await animals to perform in a like fashion if they have similar abilities. For example, the mirror test is used to see if animals have awareness of themselves as the image that they meet in a mirror. If a marker is placed on the animal, they should show signs of knowing that the marker is on their body. Perchance they try to rub it off with their easily or, if they tin't apply their limbs that way, they may move their body a bit to see the marking improve. But what if an fauna doesn't have the best vision? Do nosotros just say that, because they tin can't perform the test in that way, they wouldn't pass? Expecting all other animals to perform similarly to humans on tests tin exist problematic. This makes learning nearly some parts of animal behavior difficult.

But, what we have learned is pretty heady. As we keep learning more than and more than about animal beliefs, we are continually surprised.

Gunnison'due south prairie dogs seem to have a adequately complex language... rather than just sounding a basic alarm call, researchers have institute that their warning calls can depict specific predator speed, color, shape, and size... And so when is this advice complex enough for us to phone call it a language? Elephants have been found to communicate across miles of land through subsonic sound. And when researchers slow a hummingbird's chirp down, it seems the song may exist every bit complex as a vocal from some other birds, though more studies need to exist done to understand this. Practise we view creature "language" as limited simply because we have trouble understanding it?

This Caledonian crow is solving a water level problem. It adds pocket-size blocks into columns of water to raise the water level, allowing information technology admission to food. The crow also had to realize that one column was too broad, so the limited blocks wouldn't raise the water enough. Image from video by Logan C, Jelbert S, Breen A, Grayness R, Taylor A via Wikimedia Commons.

Caledonian crows can solve problems and build tools, and can solve multiple-step puzzles that require a plan. Are these examples of difficult problems? Where do we draw the line to say something is "difficult" plenty, or that we've given an fauna proper motivation to want to even solve one of these problems?

Gorillas and chimpanzees have painted pictures of birds, describing (through sign linguistic communication) that that is what they were trying to create. If they had a goal in heed and then made information technology, is that a sign that they had introspection? That they are describing their own thoughts? And that they are doing it by using their own creativity? Seems similar it might be.

And animals practise appear to feel joy and sorrow. There are videos out there showing a raven using a piece of plastic to sled downwards function of a snowy roof. The raven picks information technology upward and slides down over and over again… they aren't playing with another bird, they are enjoying sledding and having fun, perhaps feeling joy. And we continue to learn of more and more than species that prove sorrow, especially at the loss of members of their family or other loved ones. Animals that grieve include elephants, wolves, sea lions, magpies, and many more than. A recent video of javelinas (peccaries that live in the American southwest) show that they mourn their dead. But nosotros didn't realize this, until it was captured past a field camera.

So possibly in that location isn't that much that makes us uniquely human. Maybe nosotros need to pay more than attending to what animals are doing, and try to view the world through their eyes. And, possibly our power to consider beast'south feelings and hope for the well-being of these other astonishing creatures is our best, and most uniquely man ability.

Source: https://askabiologist.asu.edu/questions/human-animal-differences

Posted by: freundyouten.blogspot.com

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