Question: why do monkeys act like they have no brain when really they can be smart

Suzanne Harvey answered on 27 Jun 2013:

I think the issue here is the way we look at them – before I started really studying animal behaviour I just saw them as cute monkeys running around and not doing much, but this isn’t the case! Their behaviour is very organised, they make decisions all the time just like we do and have complicated social lives. Testing their intelligence by our standards is like them testing us on our tree climbing abilities – they’d be way better than us, but we don’t need that skill like they do!

When we put monkeys in a lab and test their intelligence on human tasks it’s kind of interesting, but for me the really interesting tests of intelligence are how they behave in their everyday lives 🙂