Interesting Facts关于动物智能的有趣故事

1. When a dolphin gives birth, a midwife dolphin attends. Often the midwife helps push the baby to the surface for its first breath.

2. Dolphins can tell the difference between men and women. In fact, some adult dolphins have made sexual advances at women swimming with them.

3. In 1914 France's first lady was kidnapped by an orangutan who had escaped from the zoo in Paris. He carried her up into a tree and kept her for hours. She was so embarrassed by this incident that the government kept it a secret for forty years.

4. A gorilla named Timmy, she had lived alone for most of his life, provided an unusual example of animal behavior. Timmy was brought to the Bronx Zoo in New York to mate with Pattycake, a female gorilla who lived at the zoo. After their baby was born, it became sick and the mother and baby were taken away. The head of the zoo reported that Timmy became very upset when they left. He wouldn't eat or sleep. He even cried. He looked everywhere to see if Pattycake had returned. It certainly seemed like he had fallen in love. 

5. In Italy, scientists showed that an octopus could learn how to perform a task by watching another octopus do it. In this experiment, an octopus who did not know how to open a jar to get to a crab inside was allowed to watch another octopus who did know how. After observing how the second octopus did it, the first octopus was able to open the jar himself. Until recently, many scientists had thought that only mammals could learn by watching others.

Glossary

•midwife– 助产士

•tokidnap (-pp-) – 诱拐，绑架

•octopus– 章鱼