The most intelligent dog breed has just been identified ● Dinosaurs may have been much smarter than you thought ● Patagonia is becoming the new El Dorado for paleontologists

It has just been determined which breed of dog is the smartest

Determining the intelligence level of a dog breed is not an easy task. It is necessary to take into account a lot of factors, aspects, so as not to hit with a stick and not wake up, that a specimen has been put on a pedestal, which does not even know where its tail is, although it is able to take slippers and a newspaper with it, even to sing with you, when you try the piano score.

To this end, several experts from Finland analyzed and tested 1,002 individuals from 13 different races, and the results were even published in Nature Scientific Reports as proof that the initiative is more serious than you thought. They took into account the ability of dogs to solve certain tasks, the ability to understand human gestures, copy human behavior, memory, logical thinking, strategies chosen by them, etc.

To the surprise of many, neither the German shepherd breed, nor the border collie, nor even the Shetland sheepdog, one of the favorites for the first position, received the title of the most intelligent species. The honor went to the Belgian shepherd. With 35 points obtained in the tests out of 39 possible, the Belgian shepherd was ahead of the 2nd place border collie by 9 points.

In case you didn’t know, the Belgian Shepherd is perfect as a guard, companion, and even in police or military missions. As I said, it’s also a very intelligent animal, but you don’t ask it to explain to you why the last Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded, specifically for quantum physics. He still seems confused about calculations and definitions, but otherwise he can be relied on at any time.

Dinosaurs may have been smarter than you thought

Dinosaurs were usually said to be clueless fools who had no idea how stupid they were. Not true, comrades! Most of them have brains about the size of two peanuts, to be honest. Yes, but modern birds don’t have some sort of huge brain either, but they do show intelligence that would outshine many of our bachelors.

Well, this is exactly where a team of neuroscientists from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, USA, appeared, who in the Journal of Comparative Neurology changed almost everything we knew about the intelligence of dinosaurs. Researchers started from similarities between birds and their distant ancestors, dinosaurs. Accordingly, they hypothesized that neuronal density is a trait that is transmitted over time.

Thus, they concluded that if a T-Rex, for example, had the same density of neurons as a modern bird, it would have had the intelligence of a modern baboon. Basically, a T-Rex would have a brain similar to that of an ostrich. Given that they lived for about 40 years, they would have had plenty of time to learn and become smarter. Well, say American specialists, they could even use tools. Maybe they didn’t remember what arms the T-Rex had, but the main thing. Or, who knows, they used some really, really long tools.

Patagonia is becoming the new El Dorado for paleontologists

Even if they don’t unearth dinosaurs on an assembly line like Chinese paleontologists, Chileans can say that in late 2021 they hit the waves with an exceptional discovery… no less than four completely unknown species. And this is proof that Patagonia is indeed an area that still has many prehistoric stories to tell.

The results of the archaeological research have recently been made public, as the work of identifying and interpreting the data has been one of the most painstaking. Thus, say the Chileans, they managed to identify two types of predatory animals of the megaraptor type and two similar to velociraptors. In fact, they were, if not the top of the food chain, then at least close to it when they lived, about 66-75 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

In addition to the mentioned specimens, paleontologists also discovered two species of birds from the same period, both of which have an evolutionary relationship with modern species. The discoveries only confirm that Patagonia was and remains an Eldorado for fossil seekers, having already yielded “stars” such as Argentinosaurus, Giganotosaurus or Patagotitan, some of the most massive species of herbivores and carnivores ever discovered. How can you say that not long ago they were also intelligent.

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