Animals Can Count. It’s not just monkeys, regarded as the smartest among lower animals. Through experimentation, scientists have found that even salamanders possess counting abilities.
The people of Berlin couldn’t believe their eyes when retired teacher Wilhelm von Osten showcased his horse Hans: “What is 5 plus 7?” The horse stomped 12 times on the ground. He asked further, “If the 8th of this month is a Tuesday, what day will the 6th be?” Hans stomped 11 times.
Can a horse really count? Most witnesses present were skeptical, despite Osten swearing it was not a magic trick. So it was no surprise that at the beginning of the 20th century, hundreds of biologists from various countries gathered in Berlin to witness the remarkable horse. No one found any signs of deception…
Counting to Survive
So, is counting the only capability unique to humans? Recently, scientists have found considerable evidence supporting that animals also possess counting abilities. Monkeys can perform two arithmetic operations (addition and subtraction), birds can count, and even salamanders understand that three is greater than two.
Claudia Uller, a professor of natural sciences at the University of Essex (United Kingdom), asserts that with enough patience, we can teach chimpanzees, guinea pigs, and pigeons to master two-digit arithmetic. How do they gain such abilities? It’s simple – according to Professor Uller: To survive, these animals must assess how many fruits are on a tree or how many predators are lurking nearby.
The results of the scientists’ research are as fascinating as the methods they employed. To demonstrate how monkeys can count, Professor Uller used techniques previously applied with children. Before the chimpanzees, she hid various objects under a large umbrella. These were packages of Froot Loops, a product of Kellogg’s – a flavor of lemon, cherry, and orange – a favorite snack of monkeys.
After the umbrella was folded, they awaited the monkeys’ reactions. What happened? The monkeys were stunned when what they saw didn’t match their calculations. If – for example – there was only 1 package under the umbrella instead of the 2 they witnessed, the monkeys would stare longer, but if there were 2 packages as expected, they were satisfied. They also showed surprise when they saw 3 packages instead of 2.
Professor Claudia Uller also wanted to determine if other animal species besides monkeys could count. She chose salamanders, one of the species that lived on Earth millions of years before humans, for her experiment. She placed two large plastic tubes before the salamander, one containing two snails and the other containing three. The overwhelming majority of salamanders rushed into the tube with more snails.
A similar experiment was repeated with one tube having one snail and the other having two; the salamander always chose the second tube. However, when Uller increased the number of snails to three and four or more, the salamanders began to lose direction. Clearly, the reality that four snails are more than three was beyond the counting ability of the salamanders.
In Conclusion
The results of these experiments demonstrate that for quite some time, lower animals have possessed basic mathematical abilities, albeit limited to a few simple numbers. The German scientist asserts that the brains of young children operate on a similar principle. It isn’t until the age of 2-3, when children become proficient in speech, that they begin to learn accurate counting. From this observation, it can be concluded that the key to unlocking human mathematical ability seems closely related to language.
