Intelligence of the big cats...

[paul cooper]

QI never said that tigers are the only intelligent cat. I also never denied lions are intelligent. Maybe borrego didnt know, but certainly that is very weak "science". Come on, this is science, scientific method, not nazi Propogation. She compared semi wild lions who live in a safari, to tigers and leopards who lived in a zoo their whole lives. Not just that, but only 7 tigers. And tigers at big cat rescue which some are highly inbreeded and sick from where ever they are rescued from. It should also be well known, there was a study showing both lions and tigers significantly lose their cranial volume in captivity. Specifically obviously zoos. This is hardly proving that social animals are smarter than solitary. It also depends on the species of animals. Oh, and why do tigers have significantly bigger brains than lions? Why did they get such a drastic adaptation? I do agree brain size is not relevant when comparing animals. But when you compare cat to cat, it matters. The brain size is a significant and sudden adaptation. 

 There are arguments that can be made to counter this social vs solitary thing. One argument is that lions are particularly asocial animals living in prides, rather not work together and are only living together for the control of territory (packer), meaning there are different levels of sociality. For example, hyenas work together smarter and better than lions obviously. They say social are more smart because they have interactions with other members of the same species. Tigers also have this, and it depends what interactions. Its also good to note tigers have wider range of vocalization.

One argument, is that tigers are also very social. Check the "are tigers social animals thread?". Read Gaute gorjiras post, post #5. 

One is from a study which is posted in the other thread, showing social is not more intelligent than solitary. Not just that, but they tested lions and tigers. This opening box thing test itself is pretty weak science because you dont know if it can be coincidental, or if the animal doesnt care, and so on. Several lions were tested, not a single one open the box. The tigers had much higher "Exploration" behavior than the lions. Significantly in fact. These tigers clearly were better at opening boxes than tigers from boreggos study. 

 
I recommend reading this paper. Which does criticize borregos study, and talks about solitary vs social. https://escholarship.org/content/qt61363...363164.pdf

Is it nature or nurture? What is intelligence? Are there different types of intelligence? Is it relative to brain size? Reply