Who says that only people can have a bad memory? If you are one of those who hate people who always forget things and need to be reminded of everything all the time, you might be encouraged to know that humans are not the only beings capable of forgetting everything in record time. Animals can do it too, even in much less time than us, sometimes in seconds!
We will give you a list of some of the most forgetful animals on the planet. We will explain the main characteristics of each animal and their problem with remembering things, because just as it happens to us people, animals are also different in terms of their defects, and each one has its particular way of forgetting everything.
Let’s get started!
Bees : the queens of honey are actually the queens of forgetfulness
Bees are truly powerful insects that make possibly the most important food of all: delicious honey. However, although these insects possess impressive capacities and their work for humanity is worthy of admiration, they also have a great defect capable of hindering the work of an entire hive: a short-term memory of only 3 seconds duration.
Can you imagine a bee forgetting where its hive is? Or not remembering the flowers that have nectar and must pollinate? Well, it’s real. Bees forget everything every 2.5 seconds, which makes their sense of direction pretty bad. So how do they manage to do their job properly? It’s a mystery to us but a really curious fact.
Hamsters: the mouse without memories
Another of the animals most adored by humans and whose memory does not last more than three seconds. Hamsters are those adorable little ratites with tender cheeks that millions of people fall in love with daily and don’t even remember what they did two seconds ago.
In other words, a hamster can be running on its wheel and forget what it was doing while still rolling on it. It’s really distressing, although luckily, this lack of memory doesn’t affect their character or adorable appearance. If you want a hamster in your life, go ahead. But you should know that he will never know who you are. He will have forgotten.
Giraffes: long neck, short memory
Oh, giraffes. Fascinating animals, both in character and appearance, they barely have a 30-second memory span. Can you imagine, a giraffe is capable of making the decision to head towards a tree to eat its leaves and forget it just before arriving, finding itself in front of a tree without knowing why. We from the outside will never be able to appreciate what is happening, but maybe the next time you see a giraffe standing in front of a tree doing nothing, you will get a better idea of what is happening: it just forgot it was hungry!
Precious creatures, no doubt. You would never have imagined that their memory is so short, a real pity of nature.
Snakes
Snakes are one of the most feared predators in the world and one of the most lethal animals for hunting. Now, although they are truly terrifying creatures, you will be surprised to know that they have no memory at all. None whatsoever.
And you might be wondering how is it possible that snakes can remember the scent of their prey without having a memory, and this is because snakes have instinctive memory; that is, they do what they do because they feel they must do it, but they have no idea why. Therefore, if you have a snake and you think it has affection for you, I am sorry to tell you that this is not the case. These reptiles do not have the ability to associate emotions with their memories, so they will never know who you are, nor will they become fond of you. That’s just the way it is.
Turkeys
Turkeys are one of those animals that live up to the expectations we have of them because they look pretty dumb, and they are. A turkey’s memory doesn’t last more than 30 minutes, which is ideal for them because they won’t remember the day they were left alone in the pen because all their buddies have been in charge for Thanksgiving. Sometimes a flaw is a real blessing and this is the proof, which doesn’t make this animal any less dumb. But we simply know why they all look like them.
A pity about memory and, at the same time, a blessing; it’s a matter of perspective.
Chimpanzees
You may be surprised to find in this list the animal from which we are descended, as there are already multiple studies that have shown that Chimpanzees have a great capacity for reasoning and a good long-term memory. And this is where the key to this question is, they have a good long-term memory but not short-term, in the short term they have less memory even than a mouse.
This means that a chimpanzee can establish bonds with its caregivers in a natural reserve, but they can’t remember if 20 seconds ago they ate a banana. It’s funny how animals’ minds work, giving them so much on one side and so little on the other.
Although in reality, in the case of the chimpanzee, it is not so strange, since we people can be able to remember many things from our childhood and quickly forget where we have put the keys. A real mystery.
Ostriches
Ostriches are irritating animals, capable of getting on our nerves in just a few minutes with their way of pecking us and constantly marking their territory. However, all that vanity is reduced to nothing when you discover that their short-term memory does not last more than 10 seconds, that is, they can be pecking someone’s leg and forget why they started doing it.
Sloth
If there is a dumb animal, it is the Sloth. Their memory is so bad that they can forget what their own arm looked like and confuse it with a branch. Some end up dying when they get confused while climbing a tree; it is a pity but not a surprise. The appearance of these animals is not exactly “good”; in fact, their very name already predicts bad results in almost all their skills.
Baboons
Although Baboons have a great capacity to store memories for a long period, they always end up forgetting them in the end. This would be quickly fixed by taking paper and pencil and writing down the things we don’t want to forget; however, a Baboon does not have that ability, so they end up forgetting.
On the other hand, although they are intelligent primates, they have a minuscule attention span of only about 5 minutes at a time. This means that the Baboon concentrates a lot on doing something, but after three minutes, it leaves it alone and moves on to something else, completely forgetting what it was doing.
Seals
Another of the most curious cases of really short short-term memory is that of seals. These animals are incredibly astute and can learn all kinds of things, such as remembering their trainers’ gestures and words to make them jump or make a sound in a show.
However, apart from their learning ability and long-term memory, seals can only remember what they have done for 20 minutes. It is amazing how these animals survive and feed autonomously with such acute memory problems.
And so much for our top 10 animals with the worst memory in the world. We hope it has been as interesting and fun for you as it has been for us. The animal world will never cease to amaze us!