Intelligence of the big cats...

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That Vonk and Leese study is interesting. I didn´t see there criticism what comes to tests made by Borrego and Gaines. Thing what Vonk and Leese pointed out was: "conclusions concerning the role of sociality should be made carefully.". Otherwise there was no criticism as far as I noticed about the results of tests or test methods. They had also discussed with Borrego about that subject.

I find tests like this interesting and hopefully there is more footage available about these tests, I haven´t had yet time to look closer. Michael Gaines seems to be also a respected scientists, so I don´t see any reason to suspect any biased motivations in studies by Borrego and Gaines. Of course what comes to animals and how comparable groups representing lions and tigers were is a thing, which can be questioned. Still it is nice and interesting see, that this kind of research is happening and there are clear methods which can be repeated in future too if someone else wants to repeat this study and see if results are same kind or different.

As I said before, I personally don´t feel comfortable to make too big conclusions, but of course this study show, that lion is one candidate to be the most intelligent big cat. I don´t really care which one is, but of course it would be nice to know one day :) Hopefully in near future there would be more studies where these animals show capability to learn and remember. Reply