MONKEYS DO THE MATH

DETROIT -- A new book claims animals may be intelligent enough to do simple arithmetic.

Dr. Marc Hauser, who wrote "Wild Minds," says some adult monkeys are at least as intelligent as a one-year-old child when it comes to arithmetic.

Like a human infant, rhesus monkeys appear to know two plus one is three and other simple sums involving the digits one and two.

But, like one-year-old children, they failed to comprehend that two and two is four.

Dr. Hauser - a Harvard neuroscientist - also claims animals can form mental maps of their environment, exchange elaborate messages with each other, master intricate social relationships and create tools.

A few even exhibit rudimentary self-awareness and handle abstract notions like whether things are the same or different. These are qualities previously thought to be confined to humans.

"We share the planet with thinking animals," Dr. Hauser told the Detroit Free Press.