Perhaps the first person to ignite public interest in the "intellectuals of the sea", as they like to call dolphins marine biologists, was the American neurophysiologist John Cunningham Lilly. He declared himself in the science of cetaceans in a whole cascade amazing discoveries. One of Lilly's books, The Man and the Dolphin, was translated into Russian.

The neurophysiologist's addiction to dolphins was influenced by the size and weight of the brain of these animals: in an adult dolphin, the brain weighs 1700 grams, that is, 350 grams more than in humans! On this basis, John Lilly suspected our brothers in mind in dolphins and set about trying to test this crazy hypothesis.

Having deployed a sophisticated program to study the mind and language of dolphins, the neurophysiologist soon began to receive the results he desired! According to him, once in his presence, one dolphin distinctly said: "Lilly!" However, the neurophysiologist was ahead of the psychologist Louis Herman from the University of Hawaii (USA), who taught young dolphins two artificial languages! One of them consisted of whistling sounds synthesized on a computer, and the other consisted of signs formed by gesticulation with fingers and hands. Each language contained 35 words, combined according to the rules of grammar into more than a thousand phrases!

Dolphin civilization?

Lilly became more and more convinced of the special position of dolphins in the animal kingdom. Moreover, the scientist gradually believed in the existence of another civilization next to us! Over millions of years of underwater evolution, she comprehended the secrets of the ocean and the laws of the universe, created a culture and a kind of science. All this gigantic array of information is stored in the vast memory of "living computers" and passed on from generation to generation - at first it was assumed that it was orally, and now, as it turned out, in writing!

Yes, apparently, our closest relatives - monkeys - are gradually moving away from us on the quick wits scale. Indeed, according to Professor A. Portman from the Zoological Institute in Basel (Switzerland), the dolphin should be ranked second in terms of intellectual level after the human, followed by the elephant, and only then the monkey. But the opinion is expressed that the dolphin in some ways even surpasses Homo sapiens!

Universal sonar

Doctor biological sciences Boris Fedorovich Sergeev, in his book Living Ocean Locators, reports on the unthinkable intensity of the work of the dolphin brain during acoustic sounding of the surrounding space. The sound emitters of an animal generate continuously 20-40 signals per second, and in special occasions- about 500 impulses! Thus, the dolphin's brain processes every second such an avalanche of various signals that even a modern computer could not handle. Sending clicks, squeaks, whistles and hoots in different directions, the dolphin catches their reflections from the encountered obstacles and creates a kind of mosaic of echo signals in its brain. It can be assumed that this mosaic reproduces the surrounding space with all the objects in it with such information richness that simply cannot be achieved by visual perception!

According to the above-mentioned John Lilly, he came close to establishing vocal contact with these animals. Studying the tape recordings that recorded all the conversations and sounds in the dolphinarium, the researcher drew attention to the explosive and pulsating series of signals. It was like laughing! Moreover, in the tape recordings made in the absence of people, some words that belonged to the operators and uttered by them during the working day slipped in a very compressed form! However, the process of teaching dolphins the human language did not go further. Thinking about the reasons for this, Lilly came up with a stunning insight: they got bored with people!

And yet another important step Moscow bioacoustics V.I. Markov and V.M. Ostrovskaya. Moreover, their results can be considered simply sensational! But the fact is that human speech consists of three levels of complexity: sound, syllable and word. A combination of words can, in principle, express any thought. So. in dolphin language Lately counted six levels of difficulty! The main thing, according to experts, is that this the highest degree a peculiar signaling system reminiscent of the archaic languages ​​spoken by the Eskimos, the Iroquois and some tribes living in North America! The fundamental basis of speech among these peoples is something like a linguistic hieroglyph, which combines nouns, adjectives, and verbs. In a word, the equivalent of a whole expanded phrase! Same with dolphins: base element is a long whistle, and in different groups signals, it differs in beginnings and ends, just as in human speech there are prefixes, suffixes and endings with an unchanged root! And finally, the most surprising thing is that in the dolphin signal sequences, mathematical patterns were found that are characteristic of human written texts! In other words, they show signs of a semantic hierarchy like "phrase - paragraph - paragraph - chapter"!

Last news

IN former USSR almost all dolphin research has been classified. The above-mentioned Moscow bioacoustician, Doctor of Biological Sciences Vladimir Markov, also spoke about this. According to him, back in the 80s of the last century, he and his colleagues studied the writing of dolphins. Scientists put tens of thousands of their signals on paper! And we realized that the dolphin's signal is something more in meaning and informational content than our lexical unit - the word. And the vocabulary of these signals is huge - about 7 thousand! A person, by the way, manages with a vocabulary of only 800-1000 lexical units! "In my opinion. - said V.I. Markov, - dolphins are intelligent creatures capable of receiving, processing and using information, the volume of which goes beyond their biological needs .... It is a pity that John Lilly did not live to see this significant recognition!

American dolphin researchers Jack Kassewitz and his wife Donna are now running the international Let's Talk to a Dolphin project. Enthusiasts hope to decipher the "hieroglyphs" seen in the cross section of the sound beams that animals use to "feel" their surroundings. According to project consultant Horace Dobbs, he has long suspected that the dolphin brain processes audio signals in the same way that the human brain processes visual information. Now this has been proven. Thus, the communication system in dolphins may be based on visual images that are transmitted by sound.

Scientists have made an unexpected discovery - dolphins and humans are probably distant relatives. Perhaps they managed to find confirmation of the myths and ancient legends about dolphins. Through extensive research, experts have found that blood dolphin a (including other marine mammals) and man is very similar in composition. This news stunned everyone. But that's not all. Scientist Christopher Moore (McGovern Institute for Brain Research), stated that the blood of a dolphin not only transports oxygen and nutrients throughout the body as in humans, but still affects the process of thinking! In other words, blood actively regulates the information processing that nerve cells perform. If this theory is confirmed, then we can safely say that dolphins and humans think the same way.

In 1949, zoologists proved that all cetacean animals that live in the depths of the sea have a brain that is larger in absolute weight than that of humans. This discovery greatly surprised the American psychoanalyst John Lilly, who became famous for his work in psychiatry and neurophysiology. After such high-profile discoveries, he plunged into a more detailed study of dolphins for twelve years. After a lot of experimentation, the scientist expressed a rather amazing theory that dolphins are people of the sea. Perhaps, intelligent humanoids live near us. In addition, in 1967 he published the well-known book The Mind of a Dolphin. Intelligence beyond man. John Lilly declared to the whole world that we have yet to part with the opinion that a reasonable person is the crown of creation.

Anthropologists also added colors to this hypothesis. They found that during the period of global cooling, the ancestors of people who lived off the coast of the Indian Ocean led a semi-aquatic lifestyle. They foraged for their food in shallow water. And most likely, over time, they moved deeper and deeper from the cold and icy land into the sea. Gradually, from a long swim under water, these people lost their hair, and the body gained “subcutaneous fat”. They have learned to control their breathing underwater. After all, they needed to dive for edible algae and shellfish.

A million years ago, the ancestors of today's dolphins did just that. But over time, they left the land and forever went to sea ​​depths. This is proved by excavations and the very structure of the front fins of modern dolphins. It turns out that under the flippers of all representatives of cetaceans, brushes are hidden, which are very similar to a brush human hand.


Even Plato and Herodotus in their writings suggested that after Atlantis disappeared, some of the inhabitants turned into "water people." These people have created their underwater state on the remnants of a continent that has sunk into the sea. In ancient Indian writings, a certain people of the Danavas is mentioned, who lived under water. In various medieval books, there are also references to the reservoirs in which they lived strange creatures. They had both a human appearance and at the same time very similar to the underwater inhabitants.

If we compare animals in terms of intelligence, then the king of animals will not be a lion at all. The first place will be occupied by dolphins, and the second - by elephants. Monkeys will get only the fourth place. What explains such a "arrangement" in the "hit parade" of abilities?

As you know, in monkeys, visual memory is better developed than auditory. Dolphins are exactly the opposite. They remember sounds much better than pictures. Thanks to this, dolphins distinguish each other by whistling. Each dolphin knows the voices of individuals from its flock and has its own personal "name". With the help of whistles different lengths, tonality and melody dolphins communicate with each other. One dolphin, not seeing another, can “whistle” to him which pedal, right or left, you need to press to get the fish. With the help of a whistle, you can also describe to a comrade the size of an obstacle invisible in muddy water. And echolocation impulses will help the dolphin to recognize the obstacle - they play an even greater role in the life of dolphins than vision.

Dolphins are excellent imitators. They not only recognize sounds when listening, but also imitate them themselves. The creak of a rusty door, the gurgling of water, the ringing of bells, the chirping of birds - talented dolphins can portray this or that noise in such a way that with eyes closed you can't tell it from the real thing! They can even copy human speech or laughter. If you record such an onomatopoeia on film and then listen at a slow speed, the resemblance to the human voice will clearly manifest itself.

These marine inhabitants well distinguish shades of many colors, except for blue. memorization geometric shapes also does not work for them. Moreover, dolphins are distinguished from each other by flat and voluminous forms. They will never confuse a paper circle or a square with a ball or a cube. IN Soviet time over dolphins put such an experiment. The trainer showed the ball to the animal, then hid the toy behind the screen. When the screen was parted, the dolphin saw a flat shield and a voluminous box. A ball was hidden in one of the objects. The dolphin only had to pull the loop connected to the right subject to drop the ball. So, even when the experiment was first performed, the dolphins always chose the box and never tried to look for the ball inside the flat shield. So experience has shown that dolphins can distinguish between flat and voluminous objects.

Dolphins easily find attractive objects for them. If you show a dolphin, say, a fish or a ball, and then remove it behind a screen, the dolphin will easily guess where and how to look for the object. The dolphin's eye is also good - you just have to look at the dexterity with which they jump through a hoop or throw the ball into the basket!

Dolphins are very emotional and this can affect the learning process. For example, in the course of scientific experiments, an angry or irritated dolphin makes more mistakes than a calm one. If a person hits or punishes a dolphin, the animal will refuse to perform his tasks and work with him in pairs. Therefore, when training and researching dolphins, they are encouraged with food, games, as well as affection and kindness.

Dolphins have well-developed imitation behavior. They quite easily remember and repeat the actions of other individuals. For example, off the coast of Australia in 2008, a flock of dolphins was seen, where the leader was able to stand on his tail. Other members of the clan quickly adopted this ability, imitating the leader. It is worth considering that this was not a requirement of the hierarchy. The dolphins decided to repeat the trick of the leader out of interest and curiosity.

IN scientific articles a case is described when a female dolphin, having lived for some time in a dolphinarium, began to repeat the numbers after its inhabitants, although she was not specially trained for this. After she was released into the wild, she taught the members of her pack to repeat these tricks.

But dolphins can imitate not only each other. There is a known case when two dolphins living in the same pool with fur seal began to copy his actions. They slept in the same positions as the cat, adopted his manner of swimming, paddling their fins like flippers and keeping their tail motionless, although they did not have a strict need to repeat his actions. Dolphins have even learned to rub their stomachs while lying on their backs near the surface of the water, and yawn, imitating a cat!

The dolphin's brain stores a large number of information received different ways. But in addition to its accumulation, dolphins know how to use it. They are not alien to the research approach, and it manifests itself in them more often than passivity or caution. They quickly assess the situation and adjust their behavior to it, they are well oriented in what is happening.

In difficult periods of history, only aquatic organisms can survive on Earth?

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When the German physiologist M. Tiedemann saw the brain of a dolphin for the first time back in 1827, he was amazed. The brain of a dolphin turned out to be larger than that of a monkey and almost the same as that of a human.

Professor A. Portman from Switzerland conducted research on the mental abilities of animals and found out that according to the results of the test, a person came out on top - 215 points, a dolphin was on the second - 190 points, and an elephant was the third winner. The monkey took only fourth place.

When scientists compared the human and dolphin brains, it turned out that the average human brain weighs about 1.4 kg (Turgenev's largest is 2.12 kg). The brain of a dolphin pulls 1.7 kg. Moreover, the cortex has twice as many convolutions. Isn't this what explains the amazing quick wits and incredible quickness of thinking of the dolphin? He is able to assimilate the amount of knowledge 1.5 times more than you and I. In addition, dolphins have their own colloquial speech with which they can communicate with each other and transmit the necessary information.

Why does a dolphin have such a large and complex brain? Of course, not just to eat, swim smartly, produce offspring.

This question interested scientists and they tried to establish who was the ancestor of the dolphin. Remaining elements in the skeleton of animals confirm that they originated from some kind of terrestrial quadrupedal mammals. Blood tests suggested that cetaceans, which include dolphins, and ungulates are relatives. But what made the dolphin ancestor change his terrestrial existence to a water one 65 million years ago, and who, in fact, was he?

It can be assumed that the whole thing is some kind of cosmic cataclysms that touched the Earth and forced animals to seek salvation in the water. After all, it was 65 million years ago that dinosaurs suddenly disappeared from the Earth. Finally, what was the land in those days: tiny islands in the vast expanse of the oceans. It could happen that someone did not have enough space on this small land.

Who knows, maybe the forerunner of man and dolphin was the same creature: having picked up a stick from the ground, it went through a grandiose path of earthly evolution and became a man, and, returning to the sea, it became a dolphin.

Like it or not, it is difficult to say with accuracy. However, one thing is absolutely clear: if man is the crown of creation on Earth, then the dolphin is the crown of creation in the ocean, "the king of the expanses of the sea."

Dolphins give birth to babies in the water. At the time of childbirth, the female raises her tail high above the water, the dolphin is born in the air and has time to breathe before it falls into the water. For the first hours, the baby dolphin swims like a float in an upright position, slightly moving its front flippers: it has accumulated a sufficient supply of fat in the womb, and its density less density water. There is always a mother and one or two more females nearby.

The dolphin feeds on mother's milk for the first time. When sucking, the baby’s lips are replaced by a tongue rolled into a tube: he covers the mother’s nipple with it, and she splashes milk into his mouth. All this happens underwater: the respiratory canal is separated from the esophagus, and the dolphin can swallow food underwater without fear of choking. After 3 years, he becomes an adult. Dolphins live up to 30 years. Cubs are born once every 2 years.

Dolphins move easily and quickly in the water. With a sudden jump, he throws the body out of the water in order to take a breath. Their shiny bodies amaze with a perfectly streamlined shape, reminiscent of a drop or a torpedo. The muzzle is extended into a narrow beak, the nostrils are merged into one "blowhole", from which the animal can release a fountain of spray 1-1.5 m high.

An adult dolphin is capable of reaching speeds of over 50 km/h. This speed is facilitated not only by the streamlined shape of the body, but also special properties skin. The outer layer - about 1.5 mm - is extremely elastic. The inner layer with a thickness of about 4 mm consists of a dense fabric. Interestingly, the inner part of the outer layer is permeated with many passages and tubes filled with a soft fatty substance. By the way, artificial skin for submarines is similar in quality to dolphin skin.

Dolphins have complex audio signaling. They are able to create and perceive ultrasounds. Precise sonar makes it possible for them to detect objects the size of an acorn in water at a distance of up to 15 m. Thanks to echolocation, dolphins find food and avoid collisions with obstacles even in completely muddy water.

Examples

Once a passenger ship was wrecked. Several people survived. None of them believed that they could survive. And when they saw a flock of sharks approaching them, they said goodbye to each other. But suddenly a miracle happened. From high seas a flock of dolphins rushed swiftly, fearlessly dispersing a flock of sharks. And she helped people stay afloat until help arrived.

An even more striking incident occurred with the fishermen in the same place in the Black Sea. A flock of dolphins surrounded the launch and swam nearby, making sounds and clearly trying to attract the attention of people. The dolphins circled around the ship until people realized that the animals were worried about something. Following them, they found a captured dolphin. Having fought off the flock, he got tangled in a fishing net. The cub was rescued and released.

The fate of the famous dolphin Tuffy, an honorary member of the American underwater expedition, is interesting. The dolphin worked as a postman and conductor, bringing appliances and tools. If one of the aquanauts swam too far into the sea and lost his bearings, Taffy always came to the rescue and led the lost one to the house on a nylon leash. After such a brilliant debut, Tuffy was accepted into service at one of the US missile ranges. He searched the sea for the electronic devices of spent rocket stages. All equipment was crammed with miniature ultrasonic transmitters. The dolphin was in a hurry to their "call signs".

The dolphin Polorus Jack, so nicknamed by English sailors, has been guiding ships through the dangerous strait in New Zealand for 25 years as a real pilot.

Not so long ago in marine aquarium Miami had an absolutely amazing case. Several dolphins caught in the ocean were brought here for training. Not far from the recruits were already trained dolphins. They did not see each other. And yet, a conversation immediately began between them. All night long strange sounds and noises were heard from the pool. The unthinkable happened in the morning. The new dolphins immediately began to perform all the tricks that people intended to teach them. It seems that their brothers, who have long lived in the pool, told them about this.

V. Avdeenko.

The distant ancestors of dolphins lived on land. Only about 70 million years ago they went to live in the ocean. Why? Because in difficult periods of history, only aquatic organisms can survive on Earth. How longer people I study dolphins, the less implausible seems the hypothesis that these mammals created their own civilization, indistinguishable in complexity from ours.

Level mental development dolphins is very high. To what extent, the person has not yet been able to establish. Perhaps this species is in no way inferior to Homo sapiens in terms of intelligence. The dolphin brain surpassed the human brain both in weight and in the number of convolutions and nerve cells in the bark.

Dolphins have their own communication system, which is in no way inferior to human language. The language of dolphins includes both gestures (turns of the head, tail, fins, various postures, jumps) and various sounds, which are sound and ultrasonic impulses.

Only whistles in the language of dolphins, the researchers counted 32 varieties. Each of them carries certain information - a greeting signal, the call of relatives, an expression of alarm, and so on. Interestingly, some native tribes canary islands and Mexico at a great distance also communicate with the help of a whistle.

By scanning the language of dolphins using the Zipf method, scientists have received indisputable evidence that it serves to transmit information, like human speech. The Zipf method allows you to determine whether sounds carry informational meaning. Its essence lies in determining the frequency of repetition of identical letters in speech. In the form of a mathematical graph sentient beings has the form of an inclined line, and random noises are located strictly horizontally. So, the speech of dolphins had the same slope coefficient on the graph as the language of people.

It was possible to isolate about 200 communication signs in the vocabulary of communication of these mammals. But their deciphering is slow and difficult. The sound communication of dolphins occurs in the range up to 300 kHz, while humans communicate with each other in the frequency band up to 20 kHz. Like humans, dolphins' speech has six levels of organization, from sound to context. But if people begin to understand each other only from the third level (word), then dolphins communicate even with the help of monosyllabic sounds.

There are many similarities between humans and dolphins. And this applies not only to the complexity of the organization of speech. Dolphins live as long as people, create families, love to communicate, grow up at the same age. Depending on the region of habitat, the language of dolphins differs slightly, which allows us to draw a parallel with national languages of people.

American scientists have found that each dolphin at birth receives a name from its relatives (a certain form of whistle lasting 0.9 seconds), which it responds to throughout its life. Dolphins refer to each other by name when communicating.

If the dolphin is alone in the pool, then it is silent. But as soon as another individual appears nearby, they begin to reproduce the richest set of sounds.

The study shows that approximately eight of the 67 species of Odontoceti (including dolphins) went through an EQ increase approximately 15 million years ago, reaching factors of 4 and 5, although the reasons for this second evolutionary leap remain completely unclear (there is only one such case of "explosive" development "intelligence" among large animals, known to scientists today: over five million years of human history, EQ has increased from about 2.5 to 7). At the same time, the "mental abilities" of the rest of the "dolphin tribe" for some reason, on the contrary, decreased.

There is an opinion that dolphins have extraordinary mental abilities that distinguish and elevate them above the rest of the animal world. Some researchers point out that they may smarter than people. These cetaceans have comprehension skills, the ability to show emotions and control behavior. They are one of the few representatives natural environment who passed the self-recognition test in the mirror.

Scientists' opinion

However, recently, against the backdrop of numerous studies, it has become an opinion that these are not the only intelligent representatives in the world of living beings. A doctor of philosophy, senior, agrees with him. Researcher Dolphin Communication project Justin Gregg in his book Are Dolphins Really Smart?

He claims that their communication skills are overrated, although whistles and clicks are complex shape audio signals, but they do not contain characteristics human language. Next, consider other creatures that also have high intelligence to determine which of them is the most intelligent.

Chimpanzee Features

Gregg points out that killer whales distant relatives monkeys. “A lot of what they do is very similar to what primates do, which is surprising given how different they are,” he says. But when it comes to human behavior and response to the world, which is one of the main ways that individuals compare perceptions to each other, killer whales are not on par with chimpanzees.

A 2007 study found that approximately 98% of the DNA in chimpanzees and humans is the same. Observations and experiments show that chimpanzees are capable of empathy, altruism and self-awareness, where their intelligence is similar to belugas. But where they really excel is in cognitive function. Monkeys have deep memories and relatively advanced knowledge of tools. They have been known to use sticks to catch ants and termites as a kind of fishing rod.

Elephant perception

The size of an elephant's brain suggests that its perception must be quite high. Like killer whales, they are able to comfort and help others, and there has even been a recorded case where one of them passed the mirror test. But the elephant lags behind the cetacean in one important area - it does not have a long memory.

Researchers claim that beluga whales have the longest memory in the animal kingdom. It is reported that they can remember the whistles of their relatives up to 20 years. A 2011 elephant perception test revealed that, in alliance with chimpanzees and whales, they are among the most cognitively advanced in the world.

However, elephants do excel when it comes to perception. According to one 2013 study, they are able to decipher ethnicity, gender, and age in people by listening to acoustic signals from voices.

Smart raccoons

Don't think killer whales are smarter than those adorable little trash monsters. Can a white whale pick a lock? But amazing small animals can.

This fact is confirmed by a strange study conducted in 1907. During the experiment, raccoons broke complex locks in less than 10 attempts. Even after they have been replaced or reversed. More recently, these amazing wild animals have been found to have flawless memories and are able to memorize puzzle solutions for up to three years.

Mental abilities of an octopus

These inhabitants underwater world they are able to communicate, remember those who give them food, they are curious, distinguish the shape and size of objects, and perform actions logically. It is noted that the octopus has the largest brain of all invertebrates, and three-fifths of its neurons are located in the tentacles, forming a control module.

They solve cognitive problems: find and remember the way out of complex labyrinths, open the lid of a jar to eat crabs. They even cooperate with predators to get their prey together. All this points to their high level development of perception and some advantages over killer whales. Moreover, an interesting fact is noted - the German aquarium octopus Otto threw stones at the glass and splashed water into the upper lamps. He tried to short circuit bright light didn't bother him.

Pigs are highly intelligent creatures

Scientists have found that pigs cope with the tasks assigned to them no worse than chimpanzees. The authors of the studies hope that people will soon stop considering them only as meat. It is noted that pigs have a long-term memory, are well oriented, and correctly perform tasks for movement. They understand simple symbolic language and do a lot of really complex primate-like things.

Pigs are highly intelligent creatures, able to recognize themselves in a mirror like killer whales. In addition, they are very sensitive, can empathize with other individuals, gain knowledge that will help them solve problems later. As mothers, they are very caring and love to play with their babies. Several studies have shown that even smarter than dogs and cats, pigs are able to solve problems faster than many primates. Finally, they understand abstract representations and even manipulate the joystick to move the cursor across the screen.

Understanding elementary things by parrots

"Parrots are surprisingly powerful in their symbolic manipulation," says Gregg. Like beluga whales, they are able to understand complex intellectual concepts that most people cannot master until kindergarten. These birds solve puzzles and also understand the paradigm of cause and effect. During the research, one parrot named Alex passed the same intelligence tests as killer whales and monkeys.

It is noted that in many areas he showed good results, and in some even better than other participants in the experiment. When he was shown various objects, he called 50. He distinguished different colors and remembered the numbers up to eight. In addition, the bird recognized the concepts of "different" and "same". It is noted that African gray parrots can learn a large number of words and use them in the context of communication with people.

Metacognition in rats

Psychology and emotional perception of rats are similar to human ones, so they are often used for laboratory experiments. Like killer whales, rats also display altruistic behavior, such as being known to free other rats from their cages during experiments.

They also have metacognition, or awareness of their own thinking, which is mental capacity observed only in humans and some primates. In fact, they were even better than some people at specific cognitive learning tasks. Rats are able to do calculations to get food out of a trap without getting caught, or process sensory cues to analyze situations and escape complex mazes.

The smartest orangutans

According to some experts, orangutans are the most intelligent primates. Compared to belugas, they are able to understand how to build objects and why it is necessary. For example, one 2012 study found that orangutans demonstrated a skillful technique in building safe and comfortable beds. And in 2018, these nerds amazed researchers with their skill at making fishhooks. Primates even used them better than human children in the same experiment!

Conclusion

In scientific circles, last years, there has been a noticeable shift in the study of the perception and development of our younger brothers. For many centuries, mankind knew little about their mind. The emergence of a new direction in science - cognitive ethology, dealing with the emotional and intellectual characteristics of living beings, revealed their complex and deep thinking.