Many animals can count, some better than you

[Judi Lynn]

Originally published March 16, 2018 at 4:37 pm Updated March 16, 2018 at 4:49 pm

Scientists have found that animals across the evolutionary spectrum have a keen sense of quantity, able to distinguish not just bigger from smaller or more from less, but two from four, four from 10, 40 from 60.

By NATALIE ANGIER
The New York Times

Every night during breeding season, the male túngara frog of Central America will stake out a performance patch in the local pond and spend unbroken hours broadcasting his splendor to the world.

The mud-brown frog is barely the size of a shelled pecan, but his call is large and dynamic, a long downward sweep that sounds remarkably like a phaser weapon on “Star Trek,” followed by a brief, twangy, harmonically dense chuck.

Unless, that is, a competing male starts calling nearby, in which case the first frog is likely to add two chucks to the tail of his sweep. And should his rival respond likewise, Male A will tack on three chucks.

Back and forth they go, call and raise, until the frogs appear to hit their respiratory limit at six to seven rapid-fire chucks.

More:
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[mr_lebowski]

1. And that's a freaking FROG, so ... you KNOW there's many higher animals that are way better at it nt

[central scrutinizer]

2. Crows can count hunters entering a field

And won't return until all the hunters have been seen leaving