Evaluating the cognitive abilities of human beings is a fairly simple yet complex process. People are willing to answer questions, and/ or perform tasks that will allow the tester to compartmentalize them into ‘normal’ or ‘mentally challenged’. However, with animals it is difficult to understand whether the animal is naturally shy or just dumb while interacting with humans! So, talking about their learning abilities is tricky. There certainly is plenty of evidence that animals have a wide range of disorders and disabilities. In wild populations, however, the life expectancy of animals with significant neurological disorders is likely to be low.
Why don’t we see mentally challenged animals?
