• Question: How smart are mice compared to other mammals?

    Asked by ChiragV to MarthaNari on 24 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Martha Havenith

      Martha Havenith answered on 24 Jun 2015:


      That’s a difficult one to answer, because smart can mean so many things. If you define smart as ‘good at leading the life they are built for’, mice are incredibly smart. They are much better at escaping than us, they also have better motor abilities, and they can detect food at distances where we wouldn’t have a clue.
      You can also define smart as ‘being able to change your thinking and acting when the situation changes.’ though. In that respect… mice are probably less smart than pigs, dolphins, orcas and probably cats, but definitely smarter than most fish (not sure about sharks and tunas…), reptiles etc.
      For example, a frog can starve while sitting on a pile of flies, because he’s wired to look for moving flies. If they don’t move, he doesn’t recognize them. That’s a lack of flexibility that’s obviously not very smart. Mice are smarter than that for sure.

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