When most people think of zoos, math is not necessarily the first topic that comes to mind. I would imagine that most people think about conservation, or sustainability, or biology, or even animal science long before they get to math.

And I understand why that is. When we are learning biology in school or thinking about the natural world, plants and animals naturally come up. If you were to stretch your mind a little, you might start pondering about the chemical reactions that make fireflies glow or even watch Rosie and begin to wonder about the physics that control the movement of her legs.

Math is still not top of mind. But I want to change this because math is everywhere.

Now before we go any further, I think we need to address the stinkbug in the room—math is not always everyone’s favorite subject, and that’s okay! To those people, I would challenge you to read a little further with an open mind and see how amazing math can be, especially at the zoo.

With me still? Awesome!

Imagine, if you will, that you’ve just entered Butterfly Pavilion, walked into our exhibit, Survival, and stopped in front of our indoor beehive. It’s a quieter day, so you can really hear the buzzing of the hive as the bees exit and enter the hive. At this point, you are probably wondering where math fits in. Look closer at their home. Every single one of the cells in the honeycomb is a hexagon—a six-sided shape. Why? Math!

No, really.  It’s geometry, a type of math that studies shapes.

When bees build hives, the cells in the honeycombs need to tightly fit together, hold a lot of weight because honey can be heavy, and use as little wax as possible.  If we use a little geometry, we can see that hexagons are perfect for this.

Circles wouldn’t work because they don’t fit tightly together—if the cells were circles there would be a lot of gaps.

Squares fit together very tightly but are not very strong—think about how easy it is to flatten a cardboard box. That’s great for storage but not good for holding heavy honey.

Triangles fit together well and are very strong but take a lot of wax to create.

Hexagons are strong, fit together tightly, and take less wax to create. They are the perfect shape for honeycombs.

Looking for a deeper mathematical adventure, take a walk to the next exhibit, Water’s Edge, and peer into the Florida Reef Tract Tank. The coral in there are special, and not just because they will be returned to their natural habitat when scientists learn more about the disease affecting the Florida Reef Tract where they once lived. Some of these corals have a very special pattern. Look very closely, can you find shapes that repeat and cover the entire surface? If so, you’ve spotted a tessellation. Tessellations are a special pattern made up of repeating shapes covering an entire surface. They are one of the major patterns that we can spot in nature and there is another pattern that you might see in Water’s Edge.

Head over to the touch tank and ask one of the interpreters if you can see one of the shells that we display there. They might hand you a nautilus shell to examine. Nautilus are a marine invertebrate related to the octopus, but their shells have a very special shape: a spiral.  The spiral of the Nautilus is very close to a Fibonacci spiral—a spiral that is created from the Fibonacci sequence. This sequence goes 1,1,2,3,5,8...on and on with the next number in the pattern being created by adding the two numbers before it. This pattern shows up throughout the natural world, in spirals, the number of petals on flowers, and even the growth of cacti.

Another important pattern at Butterfly Pavilion can best be found by stepping into our rainforest.

Walk through the double doors, take a moment to enjoy the warm air, and then look closely. Have you spotted a butterfly yet? If so, you’ve found the pattern in their colorful wings.  Watch the butterfly flit about until it lands and folds its wings. Did the colors match up? They should have; butterflies have a line of symmetry running down the middle of their bodies which means if you were to fold them over, like they do when they are resting, the two sides would match. Symmetry is a big part of mathematics because we can use it to learn a lot about curves, shapes, and equations leading us to solve big challenges in mathematics. Isn’t it cool that such an important thing can be seen in the wing of a butterfly?

Math is everywhere at the zoo; in every animal and plant you see. Math describes and even explains the ways in which our animals look, sound, move.

So, have I done it? Do you love math now? Can you see it everywhere you look? Since I’m sure there are some examples I’ve missed, what other math can you spot around our zoo?

Resources used:

Tessellation (mathsisfun.com)

Fibonacci Numbers - Math Images (swarthmore.edu)

Why Do Bees Make Hexagons In Their Hives? - Northwest Public Broadcasting (nwpb.org)

Why Are Honeycombs Shaped Like Hexagons? | Bee Removal (jjext.com)