Bobunf
You may be right, at the moment, we may acheive some or all of those potentials, we haven't yet.
It is also worth mentioning, that the Aborigines of Australia use a mainly Oral Culture to record thier history and law, the bark and rock paintings and sand designs worked to compliment that, the maintainance of knowlege and history was thus done through stories, song, dance and art. I guess that is the story for most of human civilisation. They now make the next transition to the internet, they, we adapt. I mentioned in an early post the case of the gorrila online.
I think some of the more interesting aspects of animal intelligience are social behaviours of elephants, like the drinking order at water holes, youngest and oldest, then females and males last.
And as far as art, if you consider music, in particular song, many speices leave us for dead, particularly birds, again, the artisictic aspect, I think the whales take it to the next level. In Australia, there are two migratory routes, down the West and East coast, the interesting thing is, the seperate groups of whales, traded whale song.
In Archatecture, the Bower Bird decorates the bower with blue white and shiny objects. Again, in the sustainability stakes, termites build mounds orintated in a north south direction, with an advanced system of ventilation that maintains a temperature year round, as do bush turkeys.
As for practical, useful activities to humans, dolphins have some place in the American navy I beilieve, placing/detecting mines?
Dogs, can smell drugs/bombs and warn us, somthing that technology is only now becoming able to.
And horses, before the car, these four legged animals helped us quite a bit, as they do now in some developing countries, as to Oxen. There is a story in Australian folklore about a donkey in Galipoli (world war 2) that was used for carrying dead and wounded soldiers along the cliffs, when the medic who normally lead the dokey was shot, the donkey remembered the way. Not an uncommon story with pets finding thier way home over great distances.
I think, as the only speicies with an opposable thumb, it is a little unfair and indeed ignorant to judge every other creature by our abilities. We wouldn't compare to the octupus, for example or bats were they to do the same.
I think the really interesting area, for me with animal intelligence is primates. We can teach a vocabulary of signs to chimpanzees and gorillas, and that vocabulary increases each generation, but, we still cannot have a three way conversation between the three spieices. That would be a great step in cross speicies communication. They (chimps and gorillas) don't seem to mind having a pet kitten around, so why won't they talk to each other?
And, wonder if anyone can enlighten me, was is a dog or a chimp that was the first living being to return from space?