New findings: some guppies have the ability of counting

A new research shows that the little guppies are smarter than we usually think. Some of them can count. The research was conducted by Associate Professor Culum Brown, from the Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University, and colleagues from the University of Padova. It is published in Frontiers in Behavioural Neuroscience, describing the surprising ability. After research, Professor Brown said that guppies that have very strongly lateralised brains are better at counting than those that have non-lateralised brains. For humans, the left hemisphere is often associated with language and maths, while the right hemisphere is more artistic. Scientists are always wondering why humans and other animals have lateralised brains, where the two halves of their brain execute different functions. There is a theory suggesting that having strongly lateralised brains allows each hemisphere to analyse information separately. The research shows that fish with strongly lateralised brains could distinguish between three versus four objects, while those with non-lateralised brains could only distinguish two versus three. Comparing sets of objects containing four items seems to be the upper limit of most animals — after this animals including humans switch to another system that relies on ratios when comparing sets. Further reading:http://www.cusabio.com/Recombinant-Protein/Recombinant-human-Medium-chain-specific-acyl-CoA-dehydrogenase-mitochondrial-11089628.html