The goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) is a fascinating animal, perhaps for this reason it was included in both the Western and Chinese zodiacs, and it is a participant in innumerable mythological stories – fauns, satyrs, the god Pan, and Amalthea the mother of Zeus. In addition to their historical lineage, goats have many other benefits, for example their admirable ability to walk in mountainous areas – they enjoy enviable motor coordination and are the only ruminant that can climb trees. There’s also the fact that, despite being a domesticated species ten thousand years ago, they are, along with cats, the only domestic animal that can easily revert to a feral state.
Perhaps the greatest quality that distinguishes these animals is their intelligence. Although few people know it, and despite the fact that they are generally perceived as predictable and elemental beings, the truth is that they have an inquisitive, curious nature that leads them not only to explore and decipher the particularities of every environment they face, but They also denote rapid learning. For example, it is well known among breeders that if one of the goats in the herd manages to detect a flaw in her pen fence, not only will she tirelessly exploit this deficiency to get out of it, but her mates would quickly take advantage of it. discovery.
A recent study from Queen Mary University of London, published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Zoology, found that the cognitive potential of these animals is much greater than previously thought. The researchers trained the goats to extract food from a box through a sequence of steps — pulling a lever with their mouths and then lifting it to release the reward. On average it took them just twelve attempts to complete the quest and, even more remarkable, during the ten month trial period they managed to recall the solution each month in less than two minutes.
Study co-author Dr Elodie Briefer was surprised by the results: «The speed with which the goats completed the challenge at ten months, compared to how long it took them to learn the solution, indicates excellent long-term memory. » Another of the most notorious aspects of the results is that the goats prefer to learn through direct experience, rather than imitative learning: «We found that those that had not seen a demonstration of their predecessors learned as quickly as those that had. This suggests that goats would rather learn on their own than by watching others do it.»
Goats are animals that, due to their intelligence and eagerness to explore, quickly colonize new settings. And I get the impression that these beings, in addition to providing us with milk to manufacture exquisite cheeses and other products, such as cajeta, seem to have valuable lessons to contribute to human beings. So if the dog is «man’s best friend,» the goat might as well be our best friend.
Author’s Twitter: @ParadoxeParadis
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