Are Cats More Intelligent Than Dogs? How Much Humans Are Smarter Than Bears?

It's now official and the ongoing dispute between cat and dog owners may be over.

It's the first time researchers studied number of neurons in cats and dogs cerebral cortex which is are the grey cells responsible for thinking, planning and complex behaviors.

Cat lovers - Don't get offended here! Cats are still lovely animals, but they have just half of the cortical neurons of an average dog!

Cats have been found to have around 250 million cortical neurons, dogs 530 million while humans have 16 billion.
One could conclude a dog may be twice as intelligent as a cat and human may be 32 times more intelligent than a dog.

"I believe the absolute number of neurons an animal has, especially in the cerebral cortex, determines the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is about to happen in their environment based on past experience," said Dr Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Associate Professor of Psychology and Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

"I'm 100pc a dog person, but, with that disclaimer, our findings mean to me that dogs have the biological capability of doing much more complex and flexible things with their lives than cats can.

"At the least, we now have some biology that people can factor into their discussions about who's smarter, cats or dogs."

In the new research, scientists analysed the brains of ferrets, mongoose, raccoons, cats, dogs, hyenas, lions and brown bears.
Very interesting discovery shows that many animals with large brains have the lowest neurons. Another prove that it's not the size which matters.

Golden Retriever brain has been found to have much more neurons than a hyena, lion or brown bear even though their brains are up to 3 times larger.

Brown bear has brain 10 times larger than cat's brain, but it has nearly the same number of neurons.

Raccoons have been found to have large number of neurons, raccoons lover may be proud now :)

"One reason why dogs may have more neurons in their brains than cats may be because they are social animals," she said.
"They are descended from wolves that hunt in a pack and therefore need complex behaviors to co-operate with each other, behaviors like appeasement and reconciliation. This helps them co-operate with humans too."