Researchers from Queen Mary University of London announced recently that goats are very clever, intelligent, and have wonderful memories, which isn’t news to any farmer (or goat lover) anywhere. The study also revealed goats are food-motivated, but happily resist peer pressure; the goats were taught a multi-step process in which they were rewarded with food at the end, and it took only  two minutes and twelve trials for the goats to learn the sequence. Watching other goats perform the same task had no effect on how quickly they learned the task themselves. 

The goats’ ability to remember the task was tested after one month and again at 10 months. They learned the task within 12 trials and took less than two minutes to remember the challenge.

This is the first time that scientists have investigated how goats learn complex physical cognition tasks, which could explain why they are so adaptable to harsh environments and good at foraging for plants in the wild, for example.

Read more at Science Daily

Photo by Mental Floss

Julia Domenicucci

Julia Domenicucci is an online editorial intern for culture who loves to try new foods almost as much as she loves trying new books. Born just outside of Boston and now attending school in the heart of it, Julia has come to really love the city, its art museums, and all the restaurants in the North End.