When you think of intelligent animals, you tend to think of dogs, dolphins, monkeys, or any animal you’ve seen on YouTube doing some kind of trick even you couldn’t do. However, it turns out sheep are up there too, with scientists discovering they remember faces just as well as humans.
Neuroscientists from the University of Cambridge found that when shown photos of faces, sheep chose familiar ones over the unfamiliar 79% of the time.
The new friends in question were Barack Obama, Emma Watson, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Fiona Bruce – chosen because of the availability of varied photos, and because the sheep wouldn’t have met them before.
Study co-author Jennifer Morton did point out that Barack Obama has been to Cambridge recently so, potentially, Obama could have met one of the participants before. Although researchers said they were ‘pretty sure’ he hadn’t, it’s open to debate.
Sheep aren’t the first animal proven to recognise faces. Prior studies have shown that pigeons remember people who’ve shooed them away and magpies in Australia infamously attack people they know mean harm.
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Not only will the study make people think twice about chasing away birds trying to scavenge your lunch, but scientists are hoping it’ll lead to a much larger breakthrough on brain function. Their sheep study is one part of an investigation to help Huntington’s Disease, a degenerative disorder affecting motor regions of the brain.
‘Cognitive decline is a major therapeutic target in HD,’ explains Morton. ‘If we can test cognition in sheep, we can see if there is a decline in cognition in the HD sheep. If so, they will be very useful large-animal models of HD in which novel therapies can be tested.’
Still, it’s bad news for celebrities. Turns out you can’t expect to not attract fans when you go out, even in a field.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.