Japanese Elephant Better at Math than American Students

The elephant's memory is legendary, but in a large, gray surprise to science, the mighty Asian elephant turns out to have a distinct flair for math as well

Under carefully controlled experimental conditions — essentially comprising a large cage and two buckets of assorted fruit — one elephant at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo managed to get its sums right 87 percent of the time.

A slightly less gifted pachyderm across the country in Kyoto scored a still respectable 69 percent.