Smart sheep can recognise faces
BRITAIN: The average sheep has long been judged a placid and dimwitted creature. But a study by Cambridge University suggests that we may have underestimated their intellectual capacities.
Sheep can recognise human faces, spot the facial features of their handlers, and even distinguish people from one another.
In experiments in which the animals were rewarded with food for picking out portraits of actress Emma Watson, TV newsreader Fiona Bruce and former United States president Barack Obama, sheep proved they were experts at identifying individuals.
They could even recognise people when pictures were altered or taken from a different angle, an ability only previously recorded in humans and primates. And when shown pictures of their handlers, the sheep did a double take, then wandered over to their image.
‘‘Anyone who has spent time working with sheep will know that they are intelligent, individual animals who are able to recognise their handlers,’’ said Professor Jenny Morton, who led the study.
‘‘We’ve shown with our study that sheep have advanced facerecognition abilities, comparable with those of humans and monkeys. Sheep are long-lived and have brains that are similar in size and complexity to those of some monkeys.’’
Sheep are social animals and can recognise other sheep as well as familiar humans, but little is known about their overall ability to process faces.
Researchers from Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience trained eight sheep to recognise the faces of four celebrities from photographic portraits displayed on computer screens. The training involved the sheep making decisions as they moved around a specially-designed pen.
– Telegraph Group