Why are marine mammals more intelligent than land mammals?

Answer 1

Who says? How is anyone measuring that?

Humans, Chimps and other primates, Elephants are all "intelligent". Human beings are a land mammal, remember.

Answer 2

The idea of marine mammals as being highly intelligent was propagated during the 70s by Dr. Lilly and has been widely discredited. Dolphins have the intelligence of a pig.

Answer 3

I think I know what you mean, why are creatures like dolphins more intelligent than the average similarly sized land mammal (excluding higher primates) the reason is probably due to the fact that they have to hunt in 3 dimensions. Also hunting schools of fish often requires cooperation so there is a selection pressure for them to do this.

I would think if we could determine intelligence from brains then dolphins and other fast toothed cetaceans like killer whales would be shown as the most intelligent of all since they use a variety of complex hunting behaviours which often rely on communication and teamwork between different animals in a group.

*the last answerer seems confused - oceanic mammals had ancestors who lived on the land - so by your argument they'd have had far less time to develop intelligence.*

Answer 4

Since when? So you're saying a walrus is more intelligent than a chimpanzee? Pretty broad generalization, don't you think? The only intelligent mammals in the sea are dolphins, whales and other cetaceans, and that might stretch the definition of intelligence a bit (since most of what we see of their behavior is learned from our training, and isn't really communication or higher thought) Whereas something like Koko the gorilla can actually communicate what she wants, and even displays grief at the death of a pet (she's had three cats so far, the first two dying of old age, and she went through a period of actual mourning for each of them). Your question kind of lumps humans into the group less intelligent than marine mammals, too, so you might want to rethink your question.

Answer 5

That is not necessarily true. Most humans are more intelligent than the smartest known marine mammal (dolphins, I think). Humans being mammals the last time I checked.

Answer 6

Yes probably. I can cite a well studied example of a reptile doing exactly that. Not a mammal but it's still a vertebrate; the mosasaurs. Mosasaurs were giant marine reptiles not all that distantly related to modern snakes, some species got to be the size of sperm whales (60 feet) they were pretty much the top marine predator of the late Cretaceous oceans. Paleontologists studying the fossil record have managed to chart their evolution we know they evolved a one metre (3 foot) long land based lizard and yes they did manage the jump from 1 metre lizard to 18 metre apex predator in just a few million years.

Answer 7

Because they eat a lot of tuna, which is brain food. They could also eat a lot of dolphin, which are also smart. You are what you eat, right?
Seriously though, a lot of sea mammals once lived on land and vice versa, so it's hard to distinguish what is a true sea mammal and what is a land mammal. I heard this once before, but I'm not sure where, that all mammals once lived on land.

Answer 8

do you live in the ocean or something...what is this question why do you think marine mammals are more intelligent ...they only are if land mammals doesn't include people and sloths

Answer 9

Life started in the seas which gives marine animals a huge advantage in terms of time to develope intelligence.
The Land animal humans developed intelligence because it was endowed with a thumb and hands(from it's time in the trees) learned to walk up right (from it's time in the tall grass of the savannahs watching for predators). HUmans developed these two very important body limbs and traits long before survival in the ice ages forced it to make use of it's brain as well as it's use of body parts.Animals which did not have ot compete for survival as humans did did not develope such traits or the need for extensive brain use to eat. and eating mean survival.

This is futher proved by the america indians and africans who with their land of plenty as far as food was concerned did not advance techinically as did europeans and asians.

Answer 10

Marine mammals have to compensate for not being able to walk somehow.