New research suggests goats are much more intelligent than we thought they were.
Researchers four goats can learn complicated tasks surprisingly quickly, and can remember what they learned for up to 10 months, a Queen Mary, University of London news release reported. These findings could help explain why goats have been so adaptable to their surroundings in the past.
The researchers trained goats to to get food from a box using a complex set of steps; they ability to retrieve the food was tested again 10 months later without any additional training.
"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," co-author Dr Elodie Briefer, now based at ETH Zurich said in the news release.
Before participating in their own learning sessions some of the goats were allowed to watch others learn the task.
"We found that those without a demonstrator were just as fast at learning as those that had seen demonstrations. This shows that goats prefer to learn on their own rather than by watching others," Briefer said.
This study marks the first time researchers have looked at how goats learn "complex physical cognition tasks." The research could clue researchers in as to how goats have gotten so good at adapting to their surroundings and foraging for food.
"Our results challenge the common misconception that goats aren't intelligent animals - they have the ability to learn complex tasks and remember them for a long time," co-author Dr Alan McElligott from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, said in the news release. "This could explain why they are so successful in colonising new environments, though we would need to perform a similar study with wild goats to be sure."
