Did You Know That Sheep Recognize People?
Cambridge University was able to demonstrate that sheep recognize people, or rather their faces. The experiment used photographs of celebrities such as Emma Watson, Paris Hilton and Barack Obama.
Sheep are animals that traditionally are not associated with intelligence. This probably happens to all consumer animals, since it was never in the interest of many industries to study the similarity of these animals to us.
However, there are several studies carried out in sheep, which would have an IQ similar to that of cows and slightly lower than that of pigs. This new study demonstrates again that the intelligence of farm animals positions them as sensitive and social animals.
A study showed that sheep recognize people
Every day we see how the barrier between human beings and the rest of the animals diminishes, and we discover new capabilities of some species that we thought were unique to others.
In this case, a study showed that sheep recognize people in addition to remembering their faces. The eight sheep that participated in the study had to recognize several celebrities, and they got it right 8 out of 10 times. In fact, other studies have shown its ability to recognize facial expressions.
This ability would be related to the fact that sheep are social animals that must recognize specific individuals within their group, as they are gregarious animals used to living in large groups, one of the reasons behind their early domestication by the first transhumance practitioners.
the familiar faces
The faces were placed at different angles, and even the faces of the caregivers were used without any training from the sheep, which again demonstrated that the sheep effectively recognize people in a similar way to many primates.
It should be noted that the sheep had to be trained to understand the work dynamics of the experiment. While recognizing familiar faces was a relatively well-known skill, recognizing strangers’ faces also appears to be a skill of these little ruminants.
How important is it?
The ability to recognize faces is present in few animals, as many species use other senses and characteristics to recognize individuals. Ring-tailed lemurs use their sense of smell to detect disease, while many birds use individual calls.
This is further proof of the great intelligence of some slaughtered animals, criticized for years and relegated by many studies of cognition. The researchers suggest that sheep could be a model for studying brain diseases such as Huntington’s disease.
The team began studying animals that carry the disease mutation, which, among other things, affects the recognition of facial emotions. This study opens up new possibilities for people affected by the disease, as it is currently a neurodegenerative disease that affects many people and lacks a known cure.
