Indeed. Orcas are found all over the world, from the tropics to near the poles, in more climates than nearly every other animal in the wild -- but they are still only #2 in terms of climate adaptability. #1 is humans.
As for building dams, beavers evolved to build dams. They build dams because they're beavers. When humans build dams, it's because at some point in the past, some humans somewhere intuited that a dam would bring benefits (perhaps more water for fishing), figured out how to build one, and passed that knowledge onto other humans who were otherwise cognitively completely unprepared to build dams. As the knowledge was passed on, ways to improve the dam-building procedures were invented, and better tools were developed and used, to the point where the average human-built dam far exceeds even the best beaver dam. That makes the human story even more compelling.
Tying it back to the OP, we've seen that humans can train bees to associate symbols with counts, and that's remarkable. But if we find evidence of bees spontaneously inventing numeracy in the wild, and teaching it to other bees, that would be really something. And we'd better get ready to welcome our new insect overlords.