Experiment: Elephants Can Count Using Smell

Scientists note that many animal species can demonstrate their ability to distinguish between numbers

According to a study by the City University of New York, elephants have been able to show for the first time that they canIn order to confirm their hunches, the researchers conducted experiments on six Asian elephants in northern Thailand.

They presented them with a choice of severalopaque containers with sunflower seeds inside. The lids of the container were perforated so that the animals could smell the contents. The number of seeds in each container was small - from 4 to 24 g. In experiments, elephants chose a larger number of seeds in each pair of containers. Prediction accuracy improved when researchers further increased the difference in seed in containers.

Scientists added that elephants have the mostthe number of genes associated with smell is about 2 thousand. They can rely on their sense of smell when traveling long distances in search of food and water - up to 20 km.

According to the researchers, this is the first timewhen an animal can use its sense of smell to calculate which of the two values ​​is greater or smaller. Scientists suggest that male elephants do a better job because they need to eat more food, which makes sense of smell more evolutionary.