By: Ian Sample Science editor | Is it … Baa-rack Obama? Sheep able to recognise celebrities, say neuroscientists | Neuroscience | The Guardian
Sheep able to distinguish pictures of celebrities from unfamiliar faces with near-human accuracy, with implications for research into Huntington’s disease
It has all the makings of a pub quiz teaser: what do Barack Obama, Emma Watson, Jake Gyllenhaal and the British TV presenter Fiona Bruce have in common? The answer, courtesy of neuroscientists in Cambridge, is that all have been recognised by sheep.
The unlikely connection emerges from work on the face recognition skills of a Welsh Mountain breed that belongs to a university flock. Having trained the animals on mugshots of the four, scientists found the sheep could distinguish the celebrities from unfamiliar faces with an accuracy comparable to that of humans.
