Chimpanzee in Japan Knows How to Count

A chimpanzee named Ai has a facility with numbers similar to that of a preschool child, Japanese researchers report in today’s Nature. Ai has learned to use Arabic numerals to represent numbers, it can count from zero to nine, which it demonstrates by touching the appropriate number on a monitor, and it can order the numbers from zero to nine in the proper sequence. The team from Kyoto University said Ai can also remember the correct sequence of any five random numbers, like the average preschool child.

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--Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II