Scientists know that chimpanzees rank high in intelligence among animals. Even so, they are not always prepared for the lightning-quick thinking a chimp sometimes does. Take the time an experimenter hung a banana from the ceiling of an empty room, five feet above the chimp's
reach. Then he scattered boxes on the floor. What would the chimp do? Would he stack the boxes until they were high enough so that he could
climb on them to reach the banana? The chimp had an idea of his own. He took one look at the banana; then he grabbed the man by the seat of the
pants and dragged him back to a spot directly beneath the fruit with one leap, he jumped on the shoulders of the man and grabbed the fruit. All
this took a fraction of the time he would have needed to stack up the boxes.