A small number of behavioural studies, spread over four decades, report that non-human animals such as bees and pigeons, but also macaques, baboons, and chimpanzees, struggle to reverse the associations that they learned in one direction.

Does that mean that chimps who learn to sign have to learn everything twice (once to understand the signs used by others, and again to produce the signs themselves)?

Don’t judge a fish by how fast it can climb a tree…

A lot of the “lines” we have to explain why we’re better than other animals is because back in the day someone made a list of what we can do and other species can’t.

When we find out another species can do that thing, we drop it from the list and say the others were what realy mattered all along.

The difference is the same it’s always been: the amount of effort that goes into educating the next generation.

Which builds exponentially once you start getting things like agriculture, language, and writing.