10 Human Attributes Found in Animals
As humans, we are not the fastest or the strongest animal. Even our senses are outmatched by many creatures. Birds see better than us, dogs smell better, and many animals have senses that we do not have at all. Sharks feel magnetic fields, turtles sense electricity, and bees see ultra-violet radiation. Elephants can sense a lack of salt in their bodies in much the same way that we feel thirsty. The humble tortoise can outlive us by a hundred years or more. Basic medicine is used by woolly spider monkeys who eat certain plants for birth control and parrots who eat specific clays to cure poison. So what makes us special? Here we look at ten human attributes of which we are rightly proud, and briefly consider which animals share our abilities. Perhaps what makes us special is not any single factor, but the combination of all of these? Or perhaps it is our potential rather than what we already are?
Culture encompasses all behaviors and activities which are not genetically driven and which are found throughout a local population. The arts and humanities, religions, shared attitudes and practices are all facets of culture. The wonderfully wide variety of human cultures around the world is of great interest in itself; however, not all culture is human. For an activity to be deemed cultural, it must not be directly caused by genetics, it must be passed from one individual to another throughout a population, it must be remembered and not forgotten instantly after it has occurred, and it must be passed down through generations. Many primates have their own cultures and traditions, such as the rain dances some chimpanzee groups perform at the beginning of storms. In 1963, a single Japanese macaque monkey discovered the comfort of bathing in a natural hot spring, and since then the practice has spread completely throughout the troop and is still observed today.
Humans experience a wide spectrum of emotions. From anger to grief to frustration to euphoria, we live our lives moving from one emotion to the next. Anyone who has kept a large pet, such as a dog or a cat, will be aware that these creatures experience fear, desire, panic, affection, embarrassment, and many other feelings. Dolphin mothers whose infants have died display all the trappings of grief, and bored octopuses will eventually begin to exhibit depression. Curiosity can be seen in reptiles and jealousy of parental attention between siblings is seen in great apes. Wild apes will adopt other orphaned apes, and captive apes will take pets for interest. Altruism has been shown by gorillas in two unrelated situations where, both times, a young child fell into their zoo enclosure. Each time, a gorilla patted and soothed the child and helped return him to the human zoo keepers. Chimpanzees similarly comfort each other after attacks. Emotions are far from an exclusively human experience.
