Deep Thought

If at any time from at least 12 million years ago until no more than 350,000 years ago, an extraterrestrial civilization had sent an expedition to Earth to seek out and communicate with the most intelligent and cultured living beings on this world, they would have skipped over all terrestrial life, including our skittering hominid ancestors, and sought out the Cetaceans... dolphins and whales... without any hesitation. According to Paul Kennedy's CBC Ideas program, recent research has confirmed longtime surmise that these animals communicate culture, i.e., actual knowledge, from generation to generation, and that they have the most complex communication of any non-human animals. (At least: since we don't really know what the content of their communications may be, so we have no idea how much information it may contain; but it is clear that it is quite complex and that their behavior changes in response to it). Also, they have been doing this for a long, long time by our standards.