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Animals can do math too

Math and numbers are all around us in our daily lives. Small children already have the ability to decide which of 2 sets is the bigger one and can easily learn to count. But human beings aren't the only creatures on earth with this ability. Amazingly many animals can count or do some other amazing math as well. Researchers sometimes disagree on which animals can count or do math but there is fascinating research done and the evidence clearly is there.

There have been experiments with rhesus macaques, a species of monkeys, for example. Like many other animals those monkeys knew which of 2 sets was the bigger one. But that's not all. Researchers could even teach them symbols for numbers. They taught them the numbers 0 to 9 and then 15 letters for the numbers 10 - 24. Again the monkeys would reliably choose the bigger symbol. The researchers were even able to let the monkeys add. They showed them several big dots on a screen followed after a short delay by another picture of several dots. After that the monkeys had to pick between two groups of dots. If the groups were very similar with only a difference of one dot the monkeys made mistakes but the bigger the difference was the more accurate they could do it.

But monkeys are by far not the only ones. Elephants for example can do some basic math too.

Elephants can also quite reliably choose which set has a bigger quantity and maybe can even do some addition as well. A researcher in Japan put two buckets into the reach of an elephant. She filled e.g. the first bucket with 3 apples, then the second with 1, then added 4 apples to the first bucket and 5 apples to the second one. The elephant almost always chose the bucket that contained more apples, even when the difference was only by one.

As their sense of smell is very important for elephants a team of American researchers tested 6 elephants. They put sunflower seeds into containers that were opaque so that the elephants couldn't see the seeds inside but could only smell them. Amazingly the elephants had no problem chosing the container with the bigger amount of seeds. It was easy for them when the difference was big (e.g. 180 to 30 seeds) but some also were able to tell 180 seeds apart from 150 ones. However when they put the seeds into a container that didn't let any smell through the elephants lost their ability to choose the right box.

It's not only mammals that can do math. Birds for example are good at math too. Crows are known for their intelligent behaviour and problem solving skills. German researchers trained them to play a dot matching game. They showed them between 1 and 5 dots in a grey circle on a computer screen, then showed them another image with dots. The crows were rewarded with a treat when they pecked the same number of dots. They randomly varied the shape and placement of the dots to make sure the crows were really counting. On average the crows recognized the dots correctly 75% of the time. They got a higher score when the difference between dots was bigger and got more answers wrong when the difference was only 1 dot.

Already in the 1950s another German researcher had shown that when his Western jackdaws (birds that belong to the crow family) saw him hide a certain number of treats under some boxes they would only turn around enough boxes until they had found the corresponding number of treats and then stop.

Crows are not the only birds who can do math. Researchers from New Zealand first taught some pigeons to put numbers 1, 2 and 3 in correct order. They showed the numbers on a computer screen and the pigeons had to peck them in the correct order one after the other. After that they showed them pairs of pictures with 1 - 9 objects in each pair. Again the pigeons had to peck the numbers in ascending order, e.g. when 8 and 5 objects were shown the pigeons had to peck the image with 5 objects first. The pigeons excelled at their task.

Insects like bees are math whizzes as well.

Bees can do basic arithmetic and even understand the concept of zero. An Australian researcher showed the bees 2 images with a different number of elements and the bees needed to choose the one with the lower quantity in order to receive a reward. The bees had no problem understanding that an image with no elements was less than an image showing 1 or more elements.

The same researcher also let her bees do addition and subtraction. She built a y-shaped maze for the bees. When the bees flew in they were shown up to 5 shapes. If the shape was blue it needed to be added and if the shape was yellow the bees had to substract it. After seeing the shapes the bee flew on into a decision chamber where the bee had to choose between flying to the left or right side of the maze. One side showed the correct solution and the other an incorrect one. If the correct answer was chosen, the reward was a delicious sugary solution while otherwise the bee got a bitter tasting quinine solution. At first the bees chose a random side but after 4-7 hours with over 100 trials they had learnt that blue meant +1 and yellow -1 and were then able to apply this rule to new numbers.

Of course the honeycombs that honeybees build are also a great mathematical achievement. The bees need a storage space that can store the biggest amount of nectar and honey to feed their young and to get them through the winter etc. while at the same time using the least amount of material as finding the wax to build the honeycomb is also very hard work. With the honeycombs made from many small hexagons many bees can work on it at the same time and the shape assures that no space or energy is wasted. It is also one of the strongest structures. A hexagone is a polygon that has 6 sides with an angle of 120 between each two adjacent sides. So the honeybees need to get this angle right. And it's not just the internal angles of each comb cell. They also raise the cells with an angle of 13 degrees from the base to prevent honey from flowing out. The individual cells also need to have roughly the same size to fit in with each other.

I could not find any information on how the bees actually manage to build their honeycomb with this exact angle between the sides. When the bees release the wax the worker bees then make circles in the wax with their bodies. That way the heat of their bodies heats the wax further and it flows between the circles until it finally hardens. In this process the hexagons are formed. But how it is that a hexagon shape is formed it not really clear. It was suggested that the form is made by the bees trying to make each cell as big as possible. Others have suggested that it is a result of surface tension. However they do it, it shows that they know their math.

Unfortunately it seems that many species are not tested yet on their math capabilities. Not all animals would tap a computer screen and a test would need to take the normal habitat and way of life into account.

Still Italian reseachers have found a way to test the math abilities of guppies, the tropical fish that are often found in aquariums. They tested 26 of them by putting one guppy at a time into an aquarium that had shoals of other guppies with 4 or 6 guppies in each shoal swimming in it but that offered no protection otherwise. As guppies are small there is safety in numbers and most guppies soon joined one of the groups with 6 other guppies. They also gave them 2 different tasks involving food. In one task the guppies had to choose between 4 or 6 items of food and in the other they had to choose between bites with different sizes. While some guppies were better in choosing the larger size shoal and others were better in choosing the bigger food, all in all it can be concluded that they have indeed some math abilities.

Salamanders who are amphibians can also be added to the list of animals that possess some natural math abilities. Researchers offered salamanders different tubes with either 2 or 3 fruitflies and the salamanders reliably went for the tube with 3 fruitflies.

The zoo in San Diego was even able to show that lizards, Savannah monitors to be exact, showed some understanding of numbers. They fed the lizards snails which they put in different chambers. At first they always put the same number, e.g. 4 snails in each chamber so that the lizards started to expect to find this number in each chamber. Then they put just 3 snails in some chambers. Now when the lizards only found 3 snails they searched everywhere in the chamber for the missing snail instead of just going to the next chamber where more snails were waiting for them. That means there is now at least one reptile that can do some math as well.

Who had thought that the animal kingdom is so full of math whizzes!!!

References:

monkeys:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/04/monkeys-can-do-math
here you can a good description of how the reasearchers did the experiment and about the results the got:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18092890/

elephants:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14569-elephants-master-basic-mathematics/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/elephants-smell-quantity/

crows
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/study-examines-mathematical-crows-0625151
https://corvidresearch.blog/2015/06/11/counting-crows/

pigeons:
https://www.seeker.com/pigeons-are-brilliant-in-math-1765572104.html

bees
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180607141031.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190206200358.htm
https://schoolofbees.com/how-do-bees-make-hexagons/
https://sites.google.com/site/mybeeproject/bees-and-math
https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/animals/why-do-bees-love-hexagons.html
https://www.inverse.com/article/18926-hexagons-nature-science-sacred-geometry-explainer
https://medium.com/however-mathematics/the-mysterious-connection-between-honey-bees-and-mathematics-6759b25fcb5c
https://www.secretbeyondmatter.com/en/books/4193/The-Miracle-of-the-Honeybee/chapter/5020/The-Comb-A-Marvel-of-Engineering

guppy:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161205112427.htm

salamanders
https://www.nature.com/articles/news030428-19

lizard (Savannah monitors)
https://reptile.guide/most-intelligent-reptiles/