Giraffes Might Be Even Smarter Than We Thought. Some Can Solve Simple Math Problems, a New Study Suggests

Two of four tested giraffes seemed to be able to mentally combine numbers to get one of their favorite treats: carrots. But all the animals failed at tasks involving subtraction or multiple calculations

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

July 16, 2026 10:00 a.m.

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Numerical cognition—the ability to recognize, interpret, remember and, in some instances, manipulate numbers—was long thought to be a uniquely human ability. But in recent years, scientists have discovered that more species, including fish, crows, bees and wolves, can also think in numbers.

Now, they’ve added yet another animal to that list: giraffes. Based on experiments conducted with four giraffes at Spain’s Barcelona Zoo, at least some of the long-necked ungulates appear to be able to combine quantities in their minds, researchers report in a paper published June 26 in the journal Scientific Reports.

The findings suggest that giraffes can “remember quantities they have observed, mentally update that information following changes and make optimal decisions based on it,” study co-author Iker Loidi, a biologist at the University of Barcelona, says in a statement. Some giraffes, he and his colleagues argue, might have the cognitive foundation necessary for more complex arithmetic skills.

The scientists were inspired by the results of an earlier study, also conducted at the Barcelona Zoo, which found that captive giraffes can make statistical inferences to increase their chances of receiving carrots—one of their favorite foods—rather than zucchinis. When presented with different mixes of the two veggies in experiments, the large creatures successfully chose the one with the higher proportion of carrots. “We could see that they were quite good with numbers,” Loidi tells National Geographic’s Cara Giaimo.

So, Loidi and his colleagues decided to run a series of carrot-centric experiments. They showed each giraffe the contents of several containers, which held varying numbers of the tasty veggies, then added extra carrots to one of them. Afterward, the giraffe could choose a single container to open and eat from—ideally, the one that would net them the largest serving of carrots.

Here’s an example of how the test went with a giraffe named Nuru, based on a video Loidi recorded of the experiment. First, Loidi placed three opaque containers—two yellow and one green—on a table at the creature’s eyeline. He then opened the vessels to reveal their contents to Nuru. One yellow box contained two carrots, the other contained three and the green vessel held two. After giving Nuru a chance to inspect them, Loidi closed the yellow containers so that their carrots were no longer visible. Then, he grabbed the two carrots from the green container and added them to the yellow container with two carrots, bringing its total number to four.

When he held out both closed yellow containers to Nuru, the creature paused briefly, then extended her long black tongue toward the one with the highest number of carrots—and was rewarded with a yummy snack.

To make the correct choice, it’s clear to Loidi that Nuru had to perform some mental gymnastics—something akin to simple addition. However, it’s probably not addition in the human sense. “It’s more like the perceptive basis for addition,” he tells National Geographic.

Out of the four giraffes, just Nuru and a male named Njano successfully solved the addition problem in repeated rounds of the tests. The other two cheated, choosing the correct container only when it was the last one handled by scientists.

For now, it’s a mystery as to why Nuru and Njano seem to be better at counting carrots than the other giraffes. They might naturally have stronger numerical abilities, or perhaps some of their past training at the zoo gave them an advantage.

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When the researchers conducted similar experiments designed to probe subtraction-like reasoning, all the giraffes came up short. They also flopped with more complex tests that required combining addition- and subtraction-like operations.

“These results are consistent with what we observe in humans: There are individual differences in numerical problem-solving and, in general, subtraction is more difficult than addition,” Loidi says in the statement.

Overall, giraffes appear to be better at differentiating quantities than at least eight other species of hoofed mammals, including rhinoceroses and llamas.

The finding that some giraffes can perform simple addition “is not, by itself, a revolutionary discovery,” Tyrone Lucon Xiccato, a zoologist at the University of Ferrara in Italy who was not involved with the research, tells National Geographic. However, each new study like this helps establish a “more complete picture of how cognitive abilities evolved across animals,” Lucon Xiccato adds.

These types of discoveries may also help scientists answer other questions, such as how animals use numerical cognition in their daily lives. For example, maybe giraffes mentally combine quantities to identify the most productive feeding areas or navigate the dynamics of their social communities.

Whatever explains the giraffes’ mathematical abilities, the study shows that even “a species with a relatively small brain can perform mental operations,” Loidi says in an audio clip in the statement.

“These results challenge the idea that complex cognitive abilities are exclusive to humans and other primates and support the view that sophisticated capacities may have evolved convergently across different animal lineages,” he adds.

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.