Study: Goats Are More Intelligent Than Most People Think
- 10 years ago
According to a recent study by researchers at Queen Mary University in London working with the Institute of Agricultural Science in Switzerland, goats are actually smarter than generally believed.
According to a recent study by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London working with the Institute of Agricultural Science in Switzerland, goats are actually smarter than most people give them credit for.
To test how smart they are, researchers taught 12 goats to solve a box puzzle with food as a reward.
Nine of the goats were able to open the box after trying around four times.
Two of the other goats tried to open the box with their horns, which disqualified them , and only one of the goats involved in the study couldn’t figure out how to open it even after 22 tries, when the researchers finally gave up.
The goats were tested again ten months later, and the ones that could do it the first time still remembered how to open the box.
Elodie Briefer, co-author of the study is quoted as saying: "The speed at which the goats completed the task at 10-months compared to how long it took them to learn indicates excellent long-term memory."
They were however, not great in another trial where the researchers had goats watch as their trained counterparts opened the box. Even after watching how it worked, the observing goats still couldn’t figure out how to do it.
According to a recent study by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London working with the Institute of Agricultural Science in Switzerland, goats are actually smarter than most people give them credit for.
To test how smart they are, researchers taught 12 goats to solve a box puzzle with food as a reward.
Nine of the goats were able to open the box after trying around four times.
Two of the other goats tried to open the box with their horns, which disqualified them , and only one of the goats involved in the study couldn’t figure out how to open it even after 22 tries, when the researchers finally gave up.
The goats were tested again ten months later, and the ones that could do it the first time still remembered how to open the box.
Elodie Briefer, co-author of the study is quoted as saying: "The speed at which the goats completed the task at 10-months compared to how long it took them to learn indicates excellent long-term memory."
They were however, not great in another trial where the researchers had goats watch as their trained counterparts opened the box. Even after watching how it worked, the observing goats still couldn’t figure out how to do it.