Animals as mathematicians

[paul m]

I'm sure you all wonder whether animals can count .... When mother ducks or cats are checking whether their offspring are all following her do they do it by counting them up or do they check off each individual against a mental list?

I recall that someone had concluded that rabbits and other small mammals can count, 1, 2, lots ....
There seems to be some evidence that fish do something similar:
Fish can count to four - but no higher - Telegraph

[mtngoat]

hmmnn... interesting. I'm pretty sure that all animals can count, or at least be able to differentiate between groups. That's an interesting article though, makes me wonder if my fishes knew that there were thirty in the bowl...

[paul m]

Originally Posted by mtngoat

hmmnn... interesting. I'm pretty sure that all animals can count, or at least be able to differentiate between groups. That's an interesting article though, makes me wonder if my fishes knew that there were thirty in the bowl...

Would they notice if there were only twenty-nine? Would they notice if there were thirty-one and one was a predator ....
What sort of fish are they?

[mtngoat]

I highly doubt that they'd have noticed. They were guppies, one was a fancy male and the other was a female. At one time they had 28 little guppies, and I had to separate them (the adults eat the little ones), but when one jumped out of the bowl and died, no one seemed to notice. When the female died (both male and female were in the same bowl) the male just swam around, seemingly distraught.

[Guy F]

Apparently some birds aren't too good at counting as people use this to get birds used to new hides. Normally if a bird sees someone enter a hide they will be very wary of it for a while. However, if you enter the hide with another person, and then that person walks away the birds feel it's safe to come close to the hide, so it seems they don't notice that only one person has left and there is still someone inside.
I think this only works on certain birds, mainly the smaller garden birds, larger birds would probably be more wary.
Guy

[goosey]

I just heard an interview on the Radio with Dr Claudia Uller from the University of Essex claiming that that horses also have the ability to count, or maybe recognise quantities.
I just had a quick scout on the net for some info about the study she has done.

Horses can count as well as children *|*national/international*|*the londonpaper

It's interesting horses aswell as primates can do this.