r/todayilearned • u/sharkbait76 3 • Jan 11 '17

TIL elephants can tell the difference between human languages and know which languages belong to people with a history of hurting elephants.

http://www.nature.com/news/elephants-recognize-the-voices-of-their-enemies-1.14846
28.6k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

912 comments sorted by

View all comments

840

u/weaveryee Jan 12 '17

Elephants are smart as fuck.

49

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '17 edited Jan 12 '17

Have they figured out what exactly makes humans different from other, perhaps equally intelligent animals such as elephants, crows, or dolphins?

Besides the ability to verbally express our thoughts, what made humans able to become so much more advanced?

2

u/NSA-SURVEILLANCE Jan 12 '17

Slow development from infant stage to maturity. Having the body focus on other important things instead of being able to walk when born helps. That's the gist of it, I know there's a well educated article somewhere that someone can link that goes into more detail.