Can a wolf work with numbers? Can a chickadee count? Mathematical skills like these might seem like they’re unique to humans. But scientists have found that many animals also seem to have a basic sense of numbers that helps them survive in the wild.
Since animals can’t talk, it’s impossible to know whether they understand numbers the same way we do, says Andreas Nieder. He’s a neurobiologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany who studies how animals think.
“Exploring how the brain gives rise to [number sense] helps us understand our own counting capability,” says Nieder. Read on to meet four species that use math in some unexpected ways.