As anyone who has ever poddied a lamb can tell you sheep are actually surprisingly intelligent! We’ve known for years that sheep recognise the faces of other sheep in their flock for up to two years but recently researchers at Cambridge university proved that normal sheep pass a psychological test that monkeys struggle with.
The test is used in humans to assess the effects of Huntington’s disease. While studying some sheep that carry the gene responsible for Huntington’s disease the researchers subjected both normal and genetically affected sheep to the test.
The ewes went through a series of challenges. They associated different foods with various coloured buckets. Scientists then switched the frames of reference to other colours, shapes and objects and challenged the ewes to find the foods. Of course, the ewes passed all the tests with ease.