Strange thing to say. I watched programs where for example rooks (birds) done some clever things as have some other animals where they use 'tools' to circumvent puzzles. People with pets will vouch how smart they can explore life's challenges, so while they may not be able to do algebra or order a pint at the pub you certainly don't have to "at least" have a "vaguely humanoid form" at all (to meet your criteria).
Not my criteria. You picked words out of sequence and changed the emphasis (in your quote of my text, making it look like it was my emphasis), so it's no wonder you came up with a different criteria. You even managed to change "often have at least a vaguely humanoid form" to a requirement to have a vaguely humanoid form. There's a
huge difference between "often have at least a vaguely humanoid form" (which was what I wrote) and "at least have a vaguely humanoid form" (which is what you wrongly claimed I wrote).
It's true that some other animals sometimes make crude use of simple found tools. That's a long way from human levels of tool use. It's a long way from the tool use of pre-human hominids. Even homo habilis (which some people think shouldn't even be in the homo genus at all!) had far more advanced tool use than any non-human animals alive today because homo habilis
made tools. Being able to pick up a stick and poke something is not what I'd consider enough to categorise an animal as intelligent and tool using. An extremely limited degree of intelligence and tool use isn't enough to warrant categorising them that way IMO.
It's also true that pet owners often have a hugely inflated idea of how intelligent their pets are, but that's not reality. Even in that context, they're comparing their pets with other non-human animals. A person would have to be rather deluded to believe a cat or dog or hamster or whatever is as intelligent as a human.
For a species that uses tools enough for that behaviour to be a defining trait:
It's useful to have limbs adapted to be better for manipulating objects. That would be an evolutionary selection pressure - if tool use is important enough, individuals better able to use tools would have an increased chance of success.
It's useful to have an upright stance with the manipulating limbs well clear of the ground. That would also be better for tool use.
It's often useful to have eyes as high up as practically possible. As well as being better for tool use by providing more comfortable viewing angles for whatever the manipulation limbs are handling, it also provides a longer viewing distance and that's advantageous when it comes to not being eaten by a predator.
It's useful to have visual processing close to the eyes in order to reduce lag caused by signal transmission from eyes to visual processing. So brain close to eyes.
It's useful to have the brain protected as much as possible. So head around the brain. That also provides good mounting points for eyes, protected as much as possible. Good mounting points for some other sensory organs too.
So mobility limbs at the bottom, manipulation limbs further up, head at the top and body in between all those parts. It's a useful layout, especially for a species that makes extensive use of tools. Note that I did
not say that it was a requirement. I said that it was my guess that it would often be the case. An example of convergent evolution.
EDIT: For land animals. It would be different for aquatic or avian intelligent tool-using species.
