Goats excel at learning and remembering a highly novel cognitive task

Table 1 Characteristics of the goats and number of trials to success

Goat	Breed	Horn	Sex	Age	Category	Number of trials
1	British Toggenburg	No	Male	7	Demonstrator	11
2	British Saanen	No	Male	15	Demonstrator	13
3	British Saanen	No	Female	7	Demonstrator	22
4	Pygmy	Yes	Male	8	Demonstrator	Removed trial 7
5	British Alpine	Yes	Female	5	Demonstrator	12
6	Golden Guernsey	No	Male	10	Observer	10
7	British Toggenburg	Yes	Female	7	Observer	13
8	British Toggenburg	Yes	Male	7	Observer	Removed trial 12
9	British Alpine	Yes	Female	7	Observer	Lift-lever up step: 10
10	British Toggenburg	No	Male	9	Control	10
11	Golden Guernsey	No	Male	6	Control	9
12	Anglo Nubian	No	Female	11	Control	8

Characteristics of the goats used in the experiment as demonstrators, observers or controls (additional goats tested that were not demonstrators or observers), along with breed, presence of horns, sex and age. The number of trials required to successfully learn the two-step task is indicated. Two goats (4 and 8) were removed from the test because they used an alternative method (horns) to try to obtain the reward and did not learn the lift-lever step. One goat (9) learned the lift-lever step within 10 trials, but did not learn the whole task (two-steps) within 22 trials.

ISSN: 1742-9994