Plot Synopsis

Airing as a three-hour special of NOVA -- one hour on each of three consecutive Wednesdays -- INSIDE ANIMAL MINDS explores breakthroughs in scientists' understanding of animal cognition, uncovering these animals' remarkable problem-solving abilities and exploring the complexity of their powers of communication and even their emotions. In addition, this series checks in with researchers around the globe who are pushing the animal mind to its limits to help us uncover surprising similarities to -- and differences from -- the human mind. Each one-hour episode focuses on a different animal: dogs, birds and dolphins. In "Bird Genius," INSIDE ANIMAL MINDS introduces animals at the head of the class -- like Muppet, a cockatoo with a talent for picking locks, and 007, a wild crow on a mission to solve an eight-step puzzle for the first time ever. Plus, this episode also introduces animal handler Lloyd Buck and his tame raven, Bran, who can solve a puzzle box so quickly that his performance has to be captured with high-speed photography. Then, in "Dogs & Super Senses," this series meets researcher Kathryn Lord from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst/Gettysburg College, who has reared a group of wolves from birth to see how they interpret visual information and how it contrasts with dogs. She discovers that the process of domestication on dogs may have given dogs greater flexibility to rely on all of their senses, while wolves are evolutionarily hardwired to use their sense of smell above all other senses. Finally, in "Who's the Smartest?," INSIDE ANIMAL MINDS heads to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, MD, to meet with animal psychologist Dr. Diana Reiss, who investigates whether dolphins have a sense of self and can recognize themselves as individuals.