Nancy A. Butler, age 12, of Columbia, S.C for her qucstion:

Which animals are the most intelligent?

First write out your. own definition of the word intelligent and then check the results with a big dictionary. Chances are, you will have to strain your brain to grasp what the world really means. Even experts quarrel about what intelligence actually is. Some use one system and some use another for testing the amount of intelligence you have or have not.

We take it for granted that an intelligent person learns fast and accurately, solves his problems and avoids mistakes. Well, a little bee can do all these things. As far as we know she cannot add but can you gather pollen and make honey? An owl also would pass our intelligence test. He cannot add or make honey, but could you track down a mouse in the dark?

Human beings tend to be somewhat big headed about themselves and look down on all the beasties of nature. We can add so we think that animals are more stupid than we are because, so far as we know, they cannot add. We tend to think that a dog who comes when we call him is smarter than a cat who just sits and stares when we give her an order.

The truth of the matter is that each animal is as smart as he needs to be. The important thing to remember is that each type of animal lives in his own world and copes with his own problems. It Is unfair to say that an owl is smarter than a bee, just because he can catch a mouse. He cannot make honey and the bee does not need to catch rats.

In her world, the bee must be able to cope with all her problems or she would not survive. The same holds true for the owl, the dog and the cat.

Each one of them is the right size, the right shape and just smart enough and, oh, how different they are from each other, It would be unfair and downright silly to give them all the same intelligence test.

The worst part of the animal IQ test is that we tend to give the highest marks to the animals that can do human type problems. Dog and chimps, dolphins and rats have this fanciful list because they can learn a few of our words and solve a few human type problems. But the bee would give you very different problems to test your intelligence and if she bothered about such things she might rate a human being as just about the silliest creature in the world.

It is sad that we humans are so big head about ourselves for we miss so much of the wonders of nature, We want a dog to learn a few of our words  which is fine if it helps us get along with him better. But this does not make him smarter in the dog world and meantime we could be missing some of the amazing wonders he could teach us about the world of dogs.