As humans watching animals, we often see them as they appear on the surface – cute, cuddly, or frightening – but we rarely give much thought to what happens when we’re not looking.

Thanks to recent scientific advancements, however, we’re starting to gain glimpses into the secret lives of animals, revealing stunning facts and complex behaviors that seem almost human-like.

Take elephants, for example. Researchers have discovered that elephants mourn their dead much like humans do. Surviving elephants are known to stand silently beside the body of a deceased elephant for hours, sometimes even days, gently caressing the body with their trunks.

Recent research has also shown that birds have a deeper level of social intelligence than we once thought. Many species of birds are able to recognize individual birds, remember which ones they have interacted with and can even hold a well-honed grudge against birds that have wronged them in the past.

In some cases, these grudges can last a lifetime. Researchers at the University of Cambridge have been studying the behavior of rooks and have found that if you offer one rook food while another is watching, the rook watching will hold a grudge and actively avoid the first rook for weeks, even months.

Another example of animals’ complex behaviors is in prairie dogs, who use a highly sophisticated language system capable of communicating things as specific as human descriptions of clothing, hair color, and facial characteristics.

And let’s not forget the tiny creatures – insects. Recently, researchers studying the behavior of wasps found that they have incredibly advanced problem-solving skills. A team of researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado placed a captive wasp in a tube with a food source at the end, out of reach.

The wasps quickly came up with an ingenious solution – they chewed through the walls of the tube, creating a new entrance directly to the food source.

It’s clear that the world of animal behavior is far more intricate and complex than we once thought. The more we learn, the more we realize there’s still so much we don’t understand. As technology continues to advance, we may finally uncover the true secrets of the animal kingdom – and who knows what incredible discoveries await us there.