When goats want to communicate with their owners, they use a communication strategy very similar to that used by other domestic animals, such as horses or dogs. As detailed by a team of researchers from the University of London in an article published in the journal Biology Letters , goats stare at humans for a while to get their attention if, for example, they cannot deal with a situation on their own. alone and ask for your help. In fact, their behavior varies depending on what the person does.
To determine this, some experts in experimental and biological psychology from the aforementioned institution, coordinated by Christian Nawroth, trained a group of these sheep to remove the lid from a box. When they got it, they got a treat. However, they designed the experiment in such a way that at one point it was impossible for them to do so.
So some scientists faced the animals and others turned their backs on them. When they examined the trial recordings, they noticed that the goats were looking alternately at the boxes and at the researchers for a few moments. They then focused their eyes on humans, especially those who were watching them, and held that posture for a long time . On the contrary, they stopped doing it with those who looked at us.
This visual communication system had already been observed in dogs . These are made to get the attention of their owner when, for example, they cannot reach an object. However, it is a more complex evolutionary adaptation than it seems.
It is suspected that the ability of dogs to interpret the intentions of humans is due to the changes that occurred in their brain during the domestication process; Scientists were surprised to find such a phenomenon in goats, animals that have been raised for about 10,000 years for the most part as livestock.
Now, Nawroth and his collaborators hope that their study will serve to better understand the cognitive abilities of farm animals and improve the conditions in which they are raised.
Image: Christian Nawroth / QMUL
