Psychologist Dr Gillian Sebestyen said: “We shared 23 million years of evolution with great apes and then diverged approximately six million years ago. Gorillas have highly complex forms of non-verbal communication. I think we are looking back at what sort of communications skills we may have once had.”

[...]

She told Science Daily: “Apes, like humans, use a range of non-verbal communicative social skills such as facial expression, eye gaze and manual gestures, and tactile signals, such as grooming and huddling, which are used for social cohesion.”

The Daily Mail article is rather vague. I’d like to know more information about the types of body language that are similar. I’ll have to do more digging online…

I especially like how, after crashing into the bushes a couple times, the chimp learns to steer. Neat.

Charlie and Batman were best friends. Everywhere Charlie went, Batman went too. At night — especially on cold winter nights — Batman would climb onto Charlie’s side and curl up in his thick fur. They’d sleep contentedly for hours, best buds.

Here’s a YouTube video featuring other cat and dog friendships:

I know that cat-dog friendships are common, but just how common? And why do they occur? What are the dogs thinking? What are the cats thinking? What about friendships between other species?

Terry Burns from Middleburg, Pennsylvania shared this photograph and caption with an unknown magazine:

The text reads:

Cashew, my 14-year-old yellow Lab, is blind and deaf. Her best friend is Libby, 7, her seeing-eye cat. Libby steers Cashew away from obstacles and leads her to her food. Every night she sleeps next to her. The only time they’re apart is when we take Cashew out for a walk. Without this cat, we know Cashew would be lost and very, very lonely indeed. It’s amazing but true: This is one animal who knows what needs to be done and does it day in and day out for her friend.

If you know where this originated, please let me know so that I can offer proper credit!

I grew up with birds in the house, but they were parrots and macaws and parakeets. I know that these birds are intelligent, and have just as much personality as any other animal (or person). But I’ve always clumped wild birds into a nebulous “dumb bird” category in my head. (Except for crows, that is. I know crows are smart.)

Turns out blue jays aren’t dumb birds. And they have plenty of individual personality.

Our “main” bird is called Sammy, and he’s the boldest and most aggressive of the group. We lure the jays with peanuts, and Sammy is willing to come down within arm’s reach to get his treats. (My goal is to get him to eat out of my hand. He’s considered it before, but never acted upon it.)

If we go outside, Sammy will sometimes fly down to where we are — the rose garden, the blueberries, wherever — and squawk at us. “Give me peanuts,” he says. If we are in the process of feeding him and another jay comes nearby, Sammy will scold the interloper and try to scare it away. (This often fails, though. He can’t keep away three or four jays at a time.)

Last month, I was going a project at the picnic table. I set a pile of peanuts on a nearby bench. Despite the fact I was moving around the table (and often within just feet of the bench), Sammy continued to fly down, grab a peanut, and then fly away with the treasure.

Sammy used to fly far away to hide his peanuts and then return for more. Now he realizes that’s too much work. When we give him a peanut, he simply hides it wherever he found it in the lawn, even if that’s just a few feet from us. He tap tap taps the nut into the ground, eyes it to be sure it’s hidden, then covers it with a leaf or two. Then he turns around for more peanuts.

He’s even losing his fear of our four cats (and they are losing interest in him). If a cat is at the picnic table, Sammy will still fly down to pick a peanut off the other end.

We’ve been trying to decide what has made this bird so bold. We believe that Sammy is a youngster, one of last year’s juvenile jays. We believe he’s never had reason to fear us. One of this year’s juveniles is almost as bold, too (maybe bolder), and we expect it to join Sammy’s antics next year.

My favorite time with Sammy, though, is in the midst of “the grove”, a small clearing in the middle of a flower bed. It’s an enclosed space maybe twelve feet in diameter. Sammy feels perfectly safe there, and he comes even closer than he does on the lawn. He and I like to sit in the grove and chat, sharing peanuts.

From the YouTube post:

This has to be one of the oddest (and strangely mesmerizing) things on the net: ants flying through the air in extreme slow motion propelled by the rapid closing of their jaws. All set to a very peculiar sound track. The ant at the top of the image above is cart-wheeling its way over the other two.

What are the other ants thinking while they watch this? Does this hurt the ant? I’m convinced that many animals have cognition. But insects? Is this all reflex? What’s going on here?

(Read more about trap-jaw ants in this article.)

There is nothing I like more than stories of interspecies friendship. I love the idea that different kinds of animals can communicate and empathize with one another. Great stuff.

For example, here’s a story about Yosuke the Japanese parrort. When Yosuke escaped from his cage, he was able to return home because he knew his address. From the CNN story:

“I’m Mr. Yosuke Nakamura,” the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

“We checked the address, and what do you know, a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we’ve found Yosuke,” Uemura said.

The Nakamura family told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.

This instance may or may not be indicative of animal intelligence, but it’s still a fun story. I grew up around birds, and I know they’re smart. Once our yellow-naped Amazon flew from one end of the house to the other and crashed into the piture window at full speed, falling to the ground stunned. I rushed over to see him stand up, shake his feathers, and announce, “That was fun.” To this day I have no idea if he had any idea what he was saying. (I had also taught him to say “I’m Superman” but that phrase wasn’t appropriate to the situation.)

[CNN: Lost parrot gives vet his name and address]

Modern technology makes such questions even trickier. Here, via Boing Boing, is a video of a real dog reacting to a $15 battery-operated toy.

I find it unlikely that the real dog — Isabel — would believe she were encountering another animal. For one thing, the toy isn’t going to possess the scent of a living creature. For another, its “bark” sounds artificial. But what does Isabel think? She’s fascinated by the interloper, but what is her perception of it?

On a similar note, my wife gave me a fake crow for Christmas last year. (Yes, I’m serious.) It’s not a real crow, and it doesn’t even have real feathers, but it certainly looks real. Its wings are spread wide, and if I swoop it around the room, the cats get tense. “Why is there a crow in the house?” they seem to say. One of the cats runs like hell. The others wonder if they might not be able to catch the crow.

When its not tormenting my animals, the fake crow lives on one of our windows. One of our cats — Max — periodically attempts to examine the crow. He’s very curious about it, but since it’s out of his reach, he feels thwarted.

How does this fake crow affect my cats’ views of the real crows outside?

I wish there were a way to get deeper inside animal minds.

Therefor, I love this video:

Here we have a dog. And a cat. And a rat. The three of them live in what seems to be perfect harmony. “The dog raised the cat,” says Greg, the animals’ owner. “That’s her puppy.”

I love how these animals seem to want to be around each other. They huddle together (probably out of fear, it’s true — they’re in a downtown area), they groom each other.

It’d be great to find more videos like this…