Top 10 Smartest Mammals*

Weighing in at an average of 2.7 pounds (1,200 grams), the human brain packs a whopping 100 billion neurons. Every minute, about three soda-cans worth of blood flow through the brain. Credit: dreamstime.

Elephants have much heavier brains than we humans, but when it comes to a neuron count, we tie with the pachyderms. Who knew?

Okay, so Dave Deamer, doing what we might call some daydeaming, pondered this and more, and he asked some ScientificBlogging readers to pick the smartest mammals.

Below is the list that resulted. But ignore the list below. Just go straight to Deamer's thorough musings on this topic. Fun stuff.

[Editor's note: The links below go to really interesting articles about intelligence of each of these creatures. Sorry, but we didn't have any pertinent link for No. 10.]

1. Human (NOTE: No chimps or dolphins or elephants were allowed to vote)

2. Chimpanzee

3. Dolphin

4. Gorilla

5. Elephant (No. 5?!)

6. Horse (Okay, no links. But you've heard of "horse sense," right? 'Nuff said.)

7. Dog

8. Cat

9. Rat

10. Opossum

11. Mouse (Yes, this was billed as a Top 10 list, but when I saw the opossum ranked above the mouse, I began to question the intelligence of the voters, none of whom were chimps or dolphins or elephants. Or mice.)

*This list is highly suspect and should not be posted to a science site. (By the way, It's incredulous that killer whales were not on the list.)