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Ants That Can Count
thisIsOdd writes "NPR had a recent report about scientists at the University of Ulm who suggest that ants in desert environments count to help them get to and from their homes. Because the desert's windiness and sandiness is not conducive the 'smell-trail' method, where ants squeeze certain glands that leave a chemical trail, scientists were puzzled by the fact that these desert ants were able to leave and successfully return to their nest. The theory is called the 'pedometer theory,' and the experiment used to test it involves manipulating the leg length of some of these ants. Ants with longer legs would pass the nest on the way home, and ones with shorter legs came up... well... short."
couldn't help imagining what it would be like for one of the ants that had it's legs cut off, was made to walk home across the desert on it's stumps and then was totally bewildered as to where it's home had gone. I know they're just ants, but damn that's sad.
While you may be right, the examples you gave don't necessarily extend well to the ants. An animal looking for its babies would see less than 10 or 20 and reproducing a roll on your drum would involve varied rhythms or beats or whatever, or probably less than 50 hits if you were to reproduce it after hearing it once. The ants, however, are probably taking hundreds or thousands of steps and remembering the exact distance in one go. I cannot imagine a person hearing a roll go for 750 hits and then reproduce it in the same ballpark without counting time or hits (but I'm no drummer). The article described it as a "pedometer" and I think describing it as counting is perfectly valid - being able to distinguish between 1200 and 1300 steps would involve some form of "counting" in my mind, whether in the brain or by some physical mechanism.