The brain of the sperm whale weighs 7,800g, the elephant's weighs 7,500g, man's weighs 1,500g, the dolphin's 840g, and the brain of a mouse weighs 0,4g. If these figures are used to determine intelligence, then the sperm whale and the elephant are five times as intelligent as man, who in turn is twice as intelligent as the dolphin, which in turn is 2,000 times as intelligent as a mouse. Should we rank animals in order of how large their brains are in relation to their body weight, then the mouse would come out on top with its brain comprising 3.2%, the dolphin's 0.9% and the sperm whale's 0,021%. Neither absolute brain weight nor the relationship between brain weight and body size provide us with sensible criteria for comparing the intelligence of different species.
Species Brain weight Body weight Brain weight
(gram) (tonn) as % of
body weight
Man 1500 0,07 2,1
Bottlenose dolphin 1600 0,17 0,94
Dolphin 840 0,11 0,74
Asian elephant 7500 5,0 0,15
Killer whale 5620 6,0 0,094
Cow 500 0,5 0,1
Pilot whale 2670 3,5 0,076
Sperm whale 7820 37,0 0,021
Fin whale 6930 90,0 0,008
Mouse 0,4 0,000,012 3,2