In Germany, back in 1907, a horse named Clever Hans was made famous because of his ability to count. His owner, who trained him, claimed he could do complex calculations, from simple arithmetic to square roots, to fractions.

However, the horse was proven to be a fraud. The horse wasn't really able to count; he just responded to visual cues from his owner to figure out the right answer. Kind of a let-down for a lot of people.

In an ironic twist, new research has shown that horses can indeed count. Arithmetic may still be outside their abilities though. The experiment was done by researchers in the University of Essex is a British plate glass university">University of Essex to see if other species besides primates had any numeric abilities.

In a somewhat simple experiment, the researchers gave horses the choice of two containers of apples. The first container held two apples, the second one held three. Eleven of thirteen horses chose the container with three apples.

In a second experiment, the researchers placed two small apples in the first container, and one big apple in the second container. Most horses still went for the first container, showing that horses "go for more" just like human infants and nonhuman primates do.

Of course this has heavier repercussions in the scientific community other than the conclusion that horses can count. The researchers hope that their findings will explain our own evolutionary origins in our ability to count.