In the "Three Little Pigs", a classic short story, one of the pigs is actually smart enough to make a house out of brick, so that the Big Bad Wolf cannot blow his house down. Recent studies show that while pigs cannot do that, they still are pretty smart animals.
In experiments, they found that a pig can quickly learn about mirrors and how they work to find food by scoping out their surroundings. The scientists do not know yet if the pigs know that the eyes in the mirror are their own, and whether or not the pigs should be put into a group of animals that are intelligent like dolphins and apes. Also, researchers learned that pigs are excellent in memory of where they put their food, and where they stashed it. Lets say that there were two pigs together. One of them is following the other to the food stash. The first pig will realize this and make a false move that will confuse the follower pig. That is cool, considering that it is a pig. Pigs are also one of the fastest animal to learn circus-like tricks. Furthermore, it is hard for the pig to unlearn and forget. The studies are interesting because the pig is not really related to humans like apes, they are more related to hippos and whales. The heart of the pig is like ours, the teeth are like ours, and they even metabolize drugs like us. The young pigs learn quickly about mirrors, but at first are fascinated. Then compared to more experienced pigs, the new pigs were not as good and got frustrated.
Even though it takes some getting used to for the pigs, they are actually very intelligent animals and could be classified with primates, dolphins, and other creatures of higher learning.
**NC
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