100 YEARS OLD AND STILL AS KNOWLEDGEABLE AS A LAMB...

AREPORT this week on the ability of sheep to recognise human faces from photographs has aroused considerable interest and some surprise, yet for those of us who have long been interested in the cognitive abilities of sheep, the findings were not unexpected.

In 2001, a paper was published in the science journal Nature reporting research in Cambridge which, it said, showed that sheep can remember the faces of at least 50 other sheep. Even when the faces were presented in profile, they found that sheep could tell whether they were novel faces or the faces of old friends, even if they had not seen them for two years.

A few years later, experiments were reported showing that sheep can distinguish between smiling people and frowning people, and in 2011 an article in the journal Plos One made further revelations about the intelligence of sheep. Entitled Executive Decisionmaking In The Domestic Sheep, it tested the ability of sheep to perform mental tasks which had previously been given to mice and monkeys. The results showed that on certain mental tasks at least, sheep can perform better than mice and as well as a macaque monkey.

The new paper, “Sheep recognize familiar and unfamiliar human faces from two-dimensional images,” showed that sheep can be trained to recognise photographs of Emma Watson, Barack Obama, Fiona Bruce and Jake Gyllenhaal and distinguish these from photographs of other people they have never seen before.

Sadly, the sheep’s opinions of the Harry Potter films, US politics, BBC news and Oscar-nominated actors were not recorded. I must say I can hardly wait for a sheep to express its views on Donald Trump.

Naturally, I wanted to hear a sheep’s opinion on all this research, so took the opportunity to wander through some farmland in order to put some questions to a passing bovine. “Excuse me,” I said, “my name’s…” But I had no need to continue. “You’re Beachcomber of the Daily Express,’ it bleated. “I’d know you anywhere. I’ve seen lots of photos and, if I may say so, you have a most impressive and memorable profile.”

I blushed and thanked him, then asked about the recent research on sheep’s ability to recognise faces.

“I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about,” it said. “It seems to me that you humans must have terrible memories. There was a great fuss made many years ago about a girl called Mary who owned a small lamb which followed her to school.

“I knew that girl, though it was years ago and I might not be able to recognise her if I saw a current photo. She must have grown up a great deal. However, it is clear that her sheep had a thirst for knowledge even at a tender age. Why else would it have followed her to school? So is it any surprise to hear that we sheep can solve simple problems?”

I thanked him for his comments but had to flee as a farmer approached and accused me of harassing his sheep. What is the world coming to?