More than a long face: horses use ‘rich repertoire’ of expressions to interact | Animal behaviour
Al -Saqa may ask them about their long faces, but horses pull a variety of expressions when interacting with each other.
While facial movements can help members of the same species connect feelings or other signals to each other, they can be important to understand species between species-such as helping humans to take an insight into the experiences of domesticated animals.
In horses, for example, ear movements have long been seen as important indicators of their inner state. However, the new work indicates that there are many signals that must be searched for.
“Horses produce a set of rich and complex expressions of facial expressions, and we should not ignore the nuances in this if we want to really understand the self -experiences of horses,” said Dr. Kate Lewis, the first author of the research, from the University of Portsmouth. She said that the new work may also be important to improve the care and welfare of horses.
Writing in Peer J magazineLouis and his colleagues report how they tied in a guide for horse facial movements Known (Equations) to cancel the 36 -horsepower facial expressions and behaviors during different types of reactions that occur naturally. It was classified by the team as friendly, fun, aggressive, or fun.
The team analyzed 72 hours of observations filmed to explore any facial movements that tend to happen in every context. Lewis said: “Nothing of this size has been tried before in horses, and it is really exciting to see the fine details how animals communicate with each other,” Louis said.
While the researchers found that almost all facial movements occurred in all different contexts, some of which were more specific to certain types of reaction. In particular, they found that during the friendly and peaceful interactions with other horses, the animals tended to bring their noses forward. On the contrary, when taking care of something, horses ears were usually forward and pulled together.
During aggressive meetings, the ears tend to be flat and face back, while the inner eyebrows were raised, the nose was expanded and the head was reduced.
While playing, the lower lip was often depressed, the chin rises, the lips separated, the mouth extends widely, the ears rotate and surface back. In addition, the team indicated that during playing often, there was an increase in visible white color, the nose was pushed forward, and the head tends to be or turn to the right, or both.
“These results really highlight the importance of not relying on only one side of the face, such as the ears, to understand what the horse is trying to communicate,” Louis said. “Instead, we need to think about how individual facial movements work together to create a comprehensive face expression.”
Lewis added that the main and some -meat animals such as bears open their mouths while playing, in order to indicate that the interaction is not aggressive, and thus preventing unwanted fighting.
“This face was previously described in horses previously, but here we were able to show that it is definitely exist, and it is important, that it involves the same muscles as is the case in the princesses,” Lewis said, adding that the similarity indicates that the “theatrical face” evolved in mammals earlier in thinking in the past, before horses and monkeys were divided into the evolutionary tree.
She said: “There are similarities and differences between facial expressions that are made by the main and non -human horses, so if we want to gain a comprehensive understanding of the facial expressions and its evolutionary origins, we need to look beyond the associated cousins.”
