What Do Animals Think Of Humans?

Have you ever looked into an animal's eyes and wondered what it thinks you are? Not whether it likes you, but what it believes you are. Animals do not know our names, jobs or phones. They judge us by smell, sound, movement and routine. Nobody can read their minds, but experiments show what they do, and the answers are stranger than you might expect. To a dog, you are family: its brain's reward centre responds most to your smell. To a cat, you may be a large, clumsy cat, and one it has learned to train. Horses read your face and remember it. Crows hold a grudge against a face for more than a decade and teach it to their young. In the wild, animals run from human voices more than from lions. Elephants can tell from a voice which people are dangerous. In the sea, dolphins fish alongside people, orcas have offered food to humans, and an octopus knows exactly who fed it and who poked it. If animals could describe humans in one sentence, what do you think they would say? Tell us in the comments. Chapters: 0:00 The question 0:26 At home: dogs and cats 1:16 Horses, crows and squirrels 1:59 The wild: scarier than lions 2:42 The sea: dolphins, orcas, octopuses 3:28 What it says about us Sources: Dogs and scent: Berns, Brooks and Spivak (2015), Scent of the familiar, Behavioural Processes Dogs and oxytocin: Nagasawa et al. (2015), Oxytocin-gaze positive loop, Science Cats treating humans as cats: Bradshaw (2013), Cat Sense The cry in the purr: McComb et al. (2009), Current Biology Cat attachment: Vitale, Behnke and Udell (2019), Current Biology Horses reading faces: Smith et al. (2016), Biology Letters Horses remembering: Proops et al. (2018), Current Biology Crows and faces: Marzluff et al., University of Washington Squirrels: Bateman and Fleming (2014), Journal of Zoology Fear of human voices: Zanette et al. (2023), Current Biology: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/... Elephants and voices: McComb et al. (2014), PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas... Dolphins and fishers: Cantor et al. (2023), PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas... Orcas offering food: Towers, Visser and Prigollini (2025), Journal of Comparative Psychology Octopuses: Anderson et al. (2010), Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science Map shapes: Natural Earth (public domain) what do animals think of humans, how animals see humans, what do dogs think of humans, what do cats think of humans, animal minds, animal intelligence, do crows remember faces, do animals fear humans, octopus intelligence, orca gives food to humans, elephants recognise voices, animal behaviour, animal psychology, stickman animation, animated explainer, nature facts #animals #science #explained