A recent study found that monkeys can learn to do math if they're taught on a rewards-based system of education. Their math capabilities are up to 90 percent accurate, the research revealed.

These findings support previous results that proved humans share mathematical abilities with other species. For example, if presented with an image of dot clusters, most animals can figure out which of two groups of dots is larger or smaller. But as the number of clusters climbs, animals face increased difficulty, much like humans. A lead analyst from the study stated that it's more difficult to tell the difference between 22 and 24, than it is to distinguish two from four.

"You would have trouble distinguishing 'oo o ooo ooo ooo ooo oo ooo' [a string of 20 symbols] from 'o ooo oooo oo oooo ooo ooo o' [a string of 21 symbols], but if I asked you whether 20 was larger or smaller than 21, you could answer faster and more accurately," lead study author Margaret Livingstone, neuroscientist at Harvard University Medical School, told LiveScience.

In an attempt to know more about the mathematical abilities of these animals, scientists taught three rhesus monkeys the values of 26 distinct symbols, including 10 Arabic numerals and 16 letters. Each symbol corresponded with a reward from zero to 25 drops of water, juice or orange soda.

When scientists gave the monkeys two different symbols, the animals always chose the one equivalent to a bigger reward, suggesting they were sharp enough to tell between symbols and assign them specific values.

"They turned out to be like us - more accurate when values were represented by symbols than by the number of dots," Livingstone told LiveScience. "It tells us what good symbols are."

Scientists used another experiment to confirm whether the results were positive. Livingstone stated her plans for future studies to dig deeper on monkeys' mathematical prowess. Her next experiment will reportedly test monkeys' abilities to multiply.

Researchers chose rhesus monkeys over chimpanzees because the former species are distant relatives of humans that parted ways around 25 million years ago, while the latter separated with humans only 6 million years ago.

The study was published in the April 21 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.