This research project is focused on the study of cognitive abilities of four very different species: Komodo dragons, suricates, giraffes and Borneo orangutans, including the aspects related to the well-being of the studied subjects, and adding a study on how scientific disseminations of the results of the researches may contribute to the visitor’s educational experience of the Zoo of Barcelona.

The main goal consists of proving the existence of a complex physical and/or social cognition in Komodo dragons, suricates and giraffes, whose behavior and evolutionary profile does not match most studies on the subject. For this reason, an experimental procedure has been prepared, with ecologically significant cognitive challenges for each species, which will be carried out at the zoos of Barcelona and Leipzig.

On the other hand, the aim is to contribute to the relation between cognitive studies and the enrichments often achieved by the subjects. For this purpose, a new enrichment will be introduced to the group of orangutans, as if it were a cognitive study. Thus, not only the subjects’ innovation skills and the social dissemination mechanisms that take place, but the potential benefits and problems that the use of a cognitive enrichment in social groups may bring, versus isolated individuals. The aim is to create a protocol that can be easily applicable to different species, in order to evaluate the functionality and real benefits, that the use of new cognitive enrichments (or other) to the subjects may entail.

Finally, while the cognitive tests and the enrichments take place, explanatory posters will be displayed and surveys will be taken to the users of the Zoo, in order to find out the visitors’ opinion on this kind of initiatives. Moreover, a monitoring of the informed public’s attitude will be carried out and compared with a previous line of non-informed public, to find out if any modification is produced and, finally, to see if these behavioral changes affect the conduct of the studied subjects.