9 Brilliant Animals That Build and Use Tools Like Humans Do

There are a lot of smart animals out there. Some are so smart, in fact, that they learn how to use things like tools or create their own devices and build things like humans do. Even animals that have not interacted with humans know how to adapt their environment to their advantage, using it for food, hunting, making instruments, weapons, tools, and more.

The following list of 9 animals that build things like humans do will show you the diversity of creatures capable of improvising and creating.

1. Non-Human Primates

Several non-human primate species have learned how to use items found in their surroundings to make things, and this behavior is not associated with human coexistence or development. A Buddhist shrine at Lopburi, Thailand, is home to macaques that use visitors’ hair to floss their teeth, and they start teaching their young from an early age by imitation. Orangutans make whistles out of leaf bundles to warn away predators, while gorillas use sticks to walk with, measure water depth, or create makeshift bridges.

Our closest surviving relatives, chimpanzees, have been found to use stone hammers as far back as 4,300 years ago. They can also make spears for hunting other primates as well as special tools for digging out army ants. Humans aren’t the only animals that can build things in an organized way, solve problems, or use and create tools from objects in their environment. It’s incredible how rudimentary tools can serve a variety of purposes. Some animals have adapted tools for their everyday needs, while others can be taught to use tools. They prove that necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

2. Elephants

Elephants have brains that are larger than any other land mammal, and they are also one of the smartest animals in the world. You are likely to have heard how they grieve for their loved ones, but did you know they can solve problems? That’s right, according to anecdotes, they have been known to drop rocks or logs on electric fences to short them out and use balls of chewed bark to plug up water holes against other animals. Plus, Asian elephants use branches as fly swatters.

3. Dolphins

Some bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, began using marine sponges as tools less than 200 years ago, according to research. One species, the bottlenose dolphin, swims with sponges on its nose for protection while hunting for fish. The dolphin is the only other sea mammal that uses tools besides the sea otter.

Like all members of the whale family, dolphins have acute hearing that can detect sounds from 300 miles away or more. They communicate using sonar and echolocation, and their ability to make immediate, complex decisions is remarkable. Second only to humans in brain-to-body ratio, dolphins even have a language that allows them to communicate individually with other dolphins, not just in groups; in other words, they can have short conversations.

4. Crows

Crows can remember faces and use roads to crack open nuts they drop from high up. They also collect a variety of objects they are curious about, especially while young. Their natural investigative nature has helped them learn how to create tools from their own feathers, leaves, and twigs. And, like in Aesop’s fable, they can even learn to drop rocks in pitchers to raise the water level.

5. Octopuses

Watching an octopus unscrew a can lid from the inside is just one example of how intelligent octopuses are. The veined octopus uses coconut shells to build body armor, which it wears while making its eight arms rigid like stilts to move across the seafloor, using them as shelter whenever necessary. It is the first reported invertebrate that can plan tools for later use, implying prospective thinking.

Coconut octopuses are among the smartest invertebrates in the world. They use tools, can carry their shelters around for when they use them. Octopuses can even walk in a way similar to humans, except underwater.

6. Sea Otters

Many members of the weasel family are famous for their cleverness. One member, the sea otter, uses stones as hammers on shells and as anvils to crack them open. It’s thought they have been doing so for millions of years, and without anything to do with humans. Sea otters are among the few non-primate mammals known to use tools, with evidence suggesting they have used stones to open shells for thousands of years.

7. Rodents

Rodents are generally very intelligent, although we’re mostly only familiar with mice and rats. A relative of the chinchilla called the Degu can learn how to use rakes to collect food. Humans use rakes to clear leaves, but the Degus’ tool bears a resemblance to forks with regard to food.

Rats are known to collect a wide variety of objects, which they often use as tools. They are also known to help other rats and will share food with rats who are unable to reach it. Rats build elaborate nests filled with all of the things they gather and bring home.

8. Beavers

Both humans and beavers build dams, but for very different reasons. Beavers build dams to serve as protection from predators and easy access to food, while benefits to the ecosystem are that their dams prevent bodies of water from eroding and create wetlands that attract more animals that live in or near water. Humans build dams to store water, reduce downstream flooding, and generate hydropower. The presence of beavers along waterways ensures the health and diversity of the entire region.

9. Bees

Many bee species nest underground. Some bees, however, take to creating hives and even adapt to man-made hives. It’s the structure of the honeybee‘s hives and the hierarchy that resembles humans most. Bees are to hives what neurons are to the brain. Individual bees function like cells within a body. Each has a specific task that it performs during different parts of its lifespan. Each bee is a vital part of the hive; however, it cannot survive outside of the hive for more than a few days. The hierarchy in a hive consists of the queen, female worker bees, and male drones, whose only purpose is to mate with a queen.