Next time you count, don’t forget even bees can!

“Go towards the circle. Turn left and the building you are looking for is after five blocks from there” directed a lady, to a man who was new to the city.

“One, two, three…” counted the man, as he passed the blocks to reach the building he wanted to visit.

 We use our ability to count many times in a day. Once learnt how to count, it seems so easy that we do it effortlessly. While most of us have learnt counting by opening our fingers as we count, some can count in their minds. 

Is such numerical competence innate (comes by birth) or acquired (learnt)? Do human babies have the ability to count (at least the small numbers)? When and where did this ability evolve in evolutionary tree of life? These are the questions that excite a few scientists who have been studying how the numerical competence many have evolved.

Studies have shown different ranges of numerical competence in various animals like rats, monkeys, chimps, human babies, fishes, Parrots, pigeons, and surprisingly, even ants and honey bees! Numerical competence includes being able to count, subitize (being able to assess/count numbers when shown simultaneously), proto-count (can learn to count number of some fixed kind of objects but, cannot transfer the knowledge to novel objects) do simple arithmetic operations, assess numerosities, order numerosities etc. A few animals have been shown to be able to count not only visual objects but also auditory, olfactory and tactile cues.

Human numerical ability is different compared to that of other animals. It is closely connected with our language ability. However there might be language equivalents in other animals. For example, dance language in honey bees (though it is highly debated) which bagged Karl von Frisch a Nobel Prize in 1973. Does the dance language play any role in their numerical ability? Can information theory reveal any interesting patterns in their numerical ability?

Honey bees are known to be able to proto-count, count and subitize. How do we know that? Think how you can prove this.   Find out more about it in the next post.


Update: An interesting link on the same topic:   http://plus.maths.org/content/node/5549?src=aop