Socialising in the village square. (c) Compassion in World Farming/Chi Keung Wong

Pigs are very chatty, communicating with grunts, squeals, snarls and snorts, champing their jaws and clacking their teeth. Sows have a special call for their piglets when it’s time for the piglets to suckle. Sows and piglets keep contact with each other and with their mother by squeals and grunts. If piglets are separated from Mum, they squeal for her. Scientists found that sows responded more strongly to the desperate squeals from cold, hungry piglets than they did  to calls from larger, more well-fed piglets.

Animals can also understand each other’s language. For example, some animals can understand the meaning of another’s alarm call.

Dogs and humans have a long history of living together. While dogs are often quick are picking up what humans are saying – perhaps by the tone of voice rather than by all the actual words – we humans often seem to struggle to understand dog ‘bark language.’ In this really interesting video, courtesy of the social networking site Petstreet ,  dog communication expert John Rogerson helps us decipher what our furry friends are wanting to tell us.

Santino makes plans. Image courtesy of Mathias Osvath

Santino the chimp, who is in a Swedish zoo, gathers up stones and even makes missiles out of concrete to hurl at visitors later on.

Western scrub-jays have also been tested to see if they can make plans for the future.

The jays were kept in cages with a ‘breakfast’ area and a ‘no breakfast’ area. Given the first chance to cache food, the jays cached three times more pine nuts in  in the ‘no breakfast’ area than they did in the ‘breakfast’ area.

This seems to show that they understood there might be no food given to them the following morning and so they tried to ensure they’d have something to eat.

Jays have unexpected abilities. Image: iStockphoto.com

Previously scientists had thought only humans were capable of this sort of thinking, but these kinds of observations seem to indicate amazing abilities in many animals too.

Hens can anticipate the future too. Researchers carried out an experiment where hens could either get a smaller food treat more quickly, or wait a little longer to get a bigger treat. The hens decided to wait!