M - "sorry, I didn`t make myself clear, I wasn`t suggesting I thought they were at the "top" of reptile evolution because of intelligence, but because of all their adaptations together... (I won`t list them, and you certainly know what those are). "

Murrindindi, I can only go by what I read, and this is what I read:

M - " anyone who`s seen the "Lizard Kings" film cannot doubt the intelligence of these animals. There have been precious few studies done on intelligence in any reptile, it`s a great shame that people like Gregg have such closed minds, almost a "Victorain" attitude to these animals: "Reptiles are just slow, dimwitted creatures, incapable of any sophisticated action, fuctioning mainly by instinct, and much inferior to mammals and birds". NOT true!
By the way, they have been doing more "intelligence" tests with Varanids, though the results have not yet been published, I wait with interest to see the results.
Prof. Dr. Tsellarius was truly amazed at what he found during his 15yr studies, previously believing what I`ve stated about reptile behaviours.
Varanids are surely at the top of reptilian evolution...I don`t believe I`m the only keeper who finds them in many ways totally different to most other captive reptiles, especially in view of their clear responsiveness to their captors (in many cases at least, here in captivity), and their "awareness" of the world around them, for want of a better description."

Seems to me that the focus was on intelligence, but regardless of that I didn't say they weren't intelligent and weren't interesting for their numerous adaptations to a high metabolism lifestyle. What I said was that evolution doesn't have a value system. To assume that an animal is at the 'top' of an imaginary value system based on their intelligence (or responsiveness to keepers, however you want to word it) is very Victorian because it assumes that evolution has a direction and that direction is towards intelligence (ie towards human-like qualities we admire because we are... human, coincidentally).

Even if you were to look at the whole 'package' of adaptations, not just intelligence, to put them at the top of an imaginary evolutionary hierarchy, there are many other reptiles with far more derived features. If you want to put a value on the total lot of specialised, derived features, crocodilians would be at the 'top' of that list, anyway.

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