Goats are Much Smarter than Earlier Thought [VIDEO]

A latest study wipes away the misconceptions that goats are witless animals as it finds that they are much smarter than earlier thought.

In a new finding, researchers at the Queen Mary University of London highlight the impressive cognitive abilities of goats to solve complicated tasks quickly and also their long term memory as they are able to recall the tasks for months. This new finding may help understand the animal's ability to adapt easily to the harsh and unfavorable environments.

The finding is based on a small test conducted on a group of goats. As a part of the study, the researchers placed food rewards in a box that the goats were trained to retrieve. The goats were taught to follow a linked series of steps, in which they first had to pull a lever with their mouths and then they had lift it to release the reward.

The goats learnt the task within 12 trials. The goat's ability to recall the task was tested after one month and then again after 10 months, surprisingly the animal took less than two minutes to remember the challenging task.

"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," said co-author Dr Elodie Briefer, now based at ETH Zurich.

Also before each session, the researchers allowed a few goats to watch the other goat performing the task. They noticed that the goats that didn't get a chance to observe a demonstration were equally fast at learning the task as those who had viewed the demonstrations. This clearly shows that the animal prefers learning on its own rather than watching others and learning.

This is the first time that the scientists studied how goats learn complex physical tasks and also provided an insight about the animal's ability to adapt to harsh environments and also how good they are at their foraging activities.

Co-author Dr Alan McElligott from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences said, "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. 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."

The study was documented in the journal Frontiers in Zoology.