In 1939, the German zoologist Konrad Herter taught a weasel to read.
Well, taught a weasel to distinguish the shapes "W" and "L", and from there worked steadily up to having it distinguish boxes with WURM and LEER ("empty") on it, which it managed about 80% of the time.
@generalising
What if mouse, but snake?
Gorgeous photo! Thanks for sharing.
this footnote brought to you by the excellent *Natural History of Weasels and Stoats* (OUP 2007), which begins "There is something enormously satisfactory about a weasel. It has the perfection, grace, and efficiency of a well-designed tool in the hands of an expert..." and has a section complaining about the unreasonable biases of children's woodland stories.